I was reading an article the other day about President Obama’s first 100 days in office. As is customary, the press, supporters, adversaries, and seemingly everyone in between, celebrated with an analysis of what the President and his administration had accomplished since his inauguration (or in some cases hasn’t accomplished). As I put the article down, I began reflecting on my first 100 (really 180) days in office. And what a 180 days it has been! In keeping with that spirit, I thought I’d make our inaugural blog about the first 180 days (roughly) in office for Explore Austin’s current administration.
Back in November, I had the honor of joining Explore Austin full time and immediately (along with Jamie, Rusty, and Sarah) focused on making Explore Austin the Professional, Effective, and Sustainable organization that it should be (By the way, you’ll hear those words a lot from me; “Professional, Effective, & Sustainable”, as I believe that if we focus on those three things, the rest will fall into place). Since then, we’ve made great progress!
To become more professional, we have added staff (Gergo Perlaky, our Program Director) and leased a new office space at 2121 E. Cesar Chavez (stop by and see us!). We have redesigned our website, brochures, and promotional material (thanks to Creative Pickle and Full Moon Design) and added new technology to make us more efficient. We have undergone a complete organizational assessment (thanks Greenlights!) and have implemented new risk management policies and procedures. Most importantly, we have started to hold ourselves to a higher standard of excellence than ever before!
To become more effective, we have designed a six year, building block curriculum based on our ACES framework, strengthened our relationship with KIPP through presentations to their staff and faculty, and improved our Saturday events through relationships with Team Craft (thanks Rich Weider) and our favorite facilitator, Greg Glover. We have partnered with Outpost Wilderness Adventure for our summer wilderness trips and many of our Saturday events, too. We have added a parent/Explorer information session prior to our summer wilderness trips, and a night of remembrance for parents and Explorers after the summer wilderness trips. We have created an evaluation process so that we can now quantify (through surveys of parents, Explorers, teachers, mentors, and partners) how much impact we are having, and we have made the recruiting, training, and support of mentors a top priority.
To become more sustainable, we have been fortunate enough to have the help of Bitsy Henderson and Sid Mallory of Henderson-Mallory partners. We are committed to the professional, ethical, and responsible stewardship of donors and supporters, and Bitsy and Sid have been instrumental in making us better in that area. In addition, we are lucky to have found Katie Hanus, our new Development Coordinator, who has single handedly redesigned, improved, and maintained our new database and donor communication system. In addition, we have just launched our first annual fund campaign (thanks to Katie and Bitsy) and our Board of Directors has committed to improving our governance structure, accountability, and policies (thanks to Jamie, Rusty, and Sarah).
So, as you can see, it has been a busy 180 days! Am I happy with them? Yes. Am I satisfied? No. We have plans to add at least 30 boys to the program by 2011, as well as begin a girl’s program that same year! Between now and then we will make some mistakes, learn from them, do great things, and continue to focus on our professionalism, effectiveness, and sustainability. As the President said after his first 100 days, I’ll say the same about my first 180 days, “I’m confident in the future but I’m not content with the present”.
Onward,
Todd