How one organization found CompassPoint essential
When Julia Wilson was one month into a new job as executive director of OneJustice, she signed up for Thriving as an ED, a CompassPoint program which provided skills development and coaching to new EDs and was a precursor to our current Executive Director 101 and cohort leadership programs. “It saved my life, no doubt about it,” she says. “I’m a poverty law lawyer, so it wasn’t like I came into the position knowing what it entailed or how to approach it.” This became the first of many CompassPoint programs that helped Julia and OneJustice staff and board members enhance their skills and get closer to their goal of building one justice system that works equally for all.
Finding Support
CompassPoint’s guidance helped Julia develop her approach to leadership and build confidence, showing her that “I knew what I was doing, that I wasn’t starting from zero. It’s made me a deeper, calmer, more strategic executive. There’s something about CompassPoint that’s about the whole person. They pay attention to the professional side and also where people are coming from personally.”
“There’s something about CompassPoint that’s about the whole person. They pay attention to the professional side and also where people are coming from personally.”
For Julia, it’s not just about the connections she gets to make to her own skills and content, but also to other participants. “I feel like a CompassPoint alumnus. I ran into someone I met six years ago at Thriving as an ED and it felt like a college reunion. You get a sense of shared experience with others. You’re not just one person sitting at a table taking notes.”
Transforming Herself and Others
“CompassPoint is the backbone for our professional development of staff,” Julia states. “When we do professional development plans every year the first place we look is the CompassPoint catalog.” And there are certain classes that every single staff person attends. For instance, all OneJustice supervisors attend CompassPoint’s Supervision: Helping People Succeed course.
Julia feels strongly about the importance of having a place like CompassPoint to support staff. Their staff members “understand that both OneJustice and CompassPoint take them seriously. They know that there is a training institute that cares about what they do. It says that the nonprofit sector is a serious sector and we are intense about the education of our staff. Our staff members come back with new content and the sense of being part of something bigger than just OneJustice.”
Julia sees the fact that CompassPoint itself is a nonprofit organization as a key factor. “There’s this whole conversation about what it’s like to be a nonprofit that we don’t need to have with you because you get it. So we can get down to the learning so much faster.” She adds, “What makes CompassPoint so special is that it provides best practices and learning coupled with the support it takes to make change and practically apply what you are learning. One without the other wouldn’t work.”
Learn more about our upcoming Supervision: Helping People Achieve Results and Executive Director 101 workshops here.
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“There’s something about CompassPoint that’s about the whole person. They pay attention to the professional side and also where people are coming from personally.”
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