Program Staff Learning Network Workshop: A Program Officer's Guide to Organizational Lifecycles

Like living organisms, nonprofit organizations cycle through developmental stages from conception, growth, maturity, and decline. But unlike organic organisms, those stages are not always linear or determined. As tricky as the post-COVID era has been, many organizations navigated ways to reinvent themselves. They found operational and financial success by innovating the ways they deliver joy and comfort to those they serve.  

Regeneration happens when organizations confront a moment they cannot escape. This seminar introduces organizational lifecycles as a frame so foundation staff can understand the needs and dynamics of grantees relative to their organizational lifecycle.

 

Sandi McKinley has more than 25 years of experience serving the nonprofit sector. In 2020, she founded SectorWind, a consulting firm that works with leaders and philanthropies to build financial strength and strategic adaptability within nonprofit organizations. Sandi has worked with over 1,200 nonprofit clients who served to deepen her insight into the array of options and challenges that nonprofit leaders face related to management, strategy, and financial health. As a result, she is a sought-after authority on nonprofit finance.

 

Prior to founding SectorWind, Sandi was Vice President, Advisory Services at Nonprofit Finance Fund, a national Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) where she was on staff for nearly 14 years. As a member of the Advisory Services Leadership team and serving as chief of practice, she was responsible for leading and managing the national consulting team and overseeing the services provided to nonprofits and funders. Throughout her tenure at NFF, she sought to ensure that NFF's services reflected community-based organizations' needs. Among her many accomplishments, she counts the redesign of NFF's consulting methodology, implementation of a data and knowledge function, integration of a regional structure to a national consulting practice, and the ongoing evolution of the suite of services that NFF provides. She was responsible for many NFF signature services' genesis, including the Financial Leadership Clinic, program economics analysis, and original full cost methodology. Sandi enjoyed working with nonprofit and philanthropic clients who served to deepen her insight into the array of options and challenges that nonprofit leaders face related to management, strategy, and financial health. As a result, she is a sought-after authority on nonprofit finance and represented NFF at conferences and media. 

 

Before joining NFF, Sandi provided strategic and philanthropic advice to foundations, family offices, and their grantees. Before that, she served in leadership roles for the Institute of Contemporary Art, the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. 

 

Sandi holds a Bachelor of Arts from Rosemont College and a Master of Business Administration from Simmons College School of Management, where she also served as a faculty member. She serves on several nonprofit boards and regularly speaks and writes about the role of nonprofit finance, strategic resilience, and the nature of money in the nonprofit sector. She is an avid hiker and resides outside Boston with her husband, two teenage sons, and five pets.