Jeffrey R Wilcox, CFRE, PresidentThe ultimate goal is to engage and support interims who can effectively navigate an organization's mission and culture while driving positive change during their temporary tenure. To address these challenges, Seattle-based Third Sector Company created the nation’s first training academy for interim executives focused on serving charitable organizations, trade associations and congregations.
Now with more than two decades of sector experience since its founding in 2002, Third Sector Company is well positioned to help interim executives from a variety of backgrounds create intersectionality between the business models of nonprofit organizations with a methodical process for strategic transitional leadership. Third Sector Company views supplying interim candidates as only one piece of its work. It has created a suite of support services for organizations in transition including board training, an independent financial analysis, and executive search committee counsel. The nearly 400 graduates of Third Sector Company’s Interim Executives Academy create an ever-expanding alumni cohort of nationally branded interims in 30 states ready for deployment throughout the United States.
"Having had a career in grantmaking and philanthropy, I saw first-hand the costly and emotional impacts of executive turnovers in community organizations," says Jeffrey R Wilcox, CFRE, president of Third Sector Company. "As a result, I joined hands with 40 nonprofit executives in Southern California and established Third Sector Company to untangle the repercussions caused by a lack of succession planning and poorly executed executive transition strategies.”
The company’s trademarked training program is based on six phases of an interim engagement that takes place over a nine- to 12-month process. The methodology includes 13 deliverables and a series of interventions aimed at community program delivery, fundraising, board governance, workplace culture, financial efficiency, and diversity and inclusion.
"As a social purpose corporation (SPC), we identify our brand as an organizational capacity-building partner to nonprofits rather than a temporary employment agency seeking a single transaction,” says Wilcox. “We are dedicated to helping organizations carefully bridge their prideful pasts in community services with their exciting futures,” says Wilcox.
Third Sector Company's client engagement journey begins with a comprehensive intake process with board members to establish the top five deliverables they can expect from an interim and setting realistic expectations for what can be accomplished. Through a series of interviews and engagement planning discussions prior to taking the job, the right candidate is chosen, ensuring the interim’s purpose and approach are understood.
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We are not a temporary employment agency for nonprofits. We are a capacity-building partner to organizations that want to build a bridge between what they were to what they can be. Our interims challenge boards to move from what they “want” in their next leader to understanding what they “need” from their next leader to advance their desire to contribute to the quality of life for people and communities.
Third Sector Company's expertise and experience in interim services allow it to deal with a diverse range of challenges, such as adapting to a future without a founder, beta-testing a first-time executive director, considering a merger or acquisitions, or approaching the emotional turmoil of an involuntary dismissal. Understanding these factors, Third Sector Company interims are supported to stabilize the organizational culture and help clients realign with their mission of community service.
Third Sector Company has built its reputation on the beliefs that exemplary interim management must be purposeful, methodical, profound, and transformational. Every aspect of the company’s training, programming, planning, and evaluation is based on these four operatives. Its commitment to feedback and continuous learning includes exit interviews conducted by an independent evaluator at the conclusion of each interim engagement. This year, Third Sector Company further established its leadership place in the interim industry as the catalyst organization for creating the first national conference for all nonprofit interims in the United States and Canada.
Third Sector Company has established itself as a credible interim service provider. Its strict guidelines and service framework have made Third Sector Company one of the top reliable and on-demand resources, guiding not-for-profit organizations ranging from arts and cultural groups to educational and social justice organizations.
