As CEO of the Latin American and Caribbean Alliance of YMCA in Mexico, Rodrigo Merino Arango oversees the strategic direction and financial stewardship of 28 national YMCAs. That's an enormous task, as the regional organization is responsible for reaching more than 1.5 million people in 496 communities and 28 countries. To keep his team operating at peak performance, Merino Arango attended Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations (PMNO) at Harvard Business School (HBS) Executive Education. He describes the benefits of that experience in this interview.
The cost of operating in a rapidly changing environment is putting a lot of pressure on many nonprofits around the world—and the YMCA is not an exception. As the resource office for 28 national YMCAs in Latin America and the Caribbean, we struggle to deliver the services to member YMCAs that will help them remain relevant in their communities. I attended this program to learn new frameworks and acquire new tools to assess our performance and improve our service delivery to YMCAs across the region, so we can better fulfill our mission and also achieve our strategic objectives. In addition, I wanted to expand my personal and organizational networks and see what other nonprofits were doing in this area.
I found the frameworks about the theory of change—value, capacity, and support—and lifecycle of organizations extremely valuable for understanding my own organization's capacity gaps and areas of opportunity. These frameworks will help facilitate dialogue with our board of directors and senior leaders across the region. They will also help me reflect on our performance indicators and presentation of our balanced scorecard.
The overall environment was extremely conducive to networking and sharing ideas with program participants. The program schedule and facilities enabled a positive learning experience.
The living group was a great tool for reflecting on what we learned, digesting ideas before and after sessions, and deepening personal relationships with other program participants. It often felt that the time with our living group was too short.
This is a great program for any leader looking to help their nonprofit organization adapt to a new reality, objectively assess performance, and improve decision making at all levels of the organization.
