Sometimes, as a nonprofit leader, one needs to make space to question things. How am I leading? What is the true potential of our organization? What is it about my personal experience that drives me to be passionate about this work?

These are the things typically questioned with other nonprofit leaders during happy hour, but those quickly turn into complaint sessions. Engaging Lon Swartzentruber to facilitate that sort of inquiry for both our leadership team and our board was a much more effective use of our time! After working with Lon, we all came away with a better understanding of how our personal strengths added to our mission, and more importantly, gave the board and senior staff permission to think beyond "the way we have always done things."

Under Lon's guidance, our leadership team grew closer and our board started thinking more courageously about our impact as an organization. If you are looking for someone to challenge your assumptions, push you to dig deeper, and help you envision a better and brighter future, Design Group International will help you find your way there.

Lon took the time to explore what ‘transition’ meant to me, even when I didn’t know what it all meant at first. By using a process approach, Lon created space to pose questions, to help me get at what I really wanted to accomplish through my founder transition and succession plan.

Instead of bringing a canned approach, Lon walked alongside me to discovery my pathway forward as it was being revealed. In doing so, Lon helped me use my skills and gifts in analysis that I’m most comfortable with to develop the plan that I needed. At the end of the day, this was my transition, and this approach made it much more personal and tailored to me.

Lon also helped me think through and develop a timeframe for transition that I could tackle. Rather than being overwhelmed by it, Lon helped me realize that I was already part of the way through my transition and that it was a process and not a single event or point in time.

Our next step was to break down my ‘job description’ into components. We went from an unwritten role to defining several roles, including Founder, CEO, as well as President, all of which was extremely helpful. In addition, I’ve appreciated Design Group International’s faith-based approach to everything they do. Lon is very comfortable to work with and someone that I had no problem sharing confidential information with.

Grandville Calvin Christian School partnered with Lon to clarify our mission and core values and then to develop a new strategic plan.  Lon worked with us to engage our staff, Board, and parents in a months-long process of developing both broad strategic goals for the future and specific tactics and action items to achieve those goals.

We appreciated how the process began with them not only listening to us but also involved an intentional process of listening to our community.

Following the adoption of the strategic plan, Lon also worked with us to frame a fundraising campaign to support the goals of the plan. He helped us to establish a framework for the campaign and to begin to re-engage our community in a culture of philanthropy that has led to positive donor engagement. Lon listened first and asked good questions to help guide us to a clear direction for the future of our schools.

Bellevue Christian School is a 70+-year-old institution with a deep reverence for the vision of its founders. It is at the same time in one of the most competitive independent school markets in the country. Developing a strategic plan that would address our future needs while honoring the past seemed a difficult needle to thread.

Thankfully, we were blessed to work with Lon. The process consulting methodology led us to ask the questions we needed to answer about our school and produced an exciting plan for our future. The encouragement and support provided by Lon helped us craft a clear vision for our school, and importantly, kept us on track to deliver the plan on time and on budget.

Lon cares about the institutions that he engages with. Beyond the scope of his work, we benefited from executive coaching, assistance with the transition of a brand-new chief advancement officer, and even a gift at our auction. I am pleased to give Lon my highest recommendation.

Lon has become an invaluable partner to Stepping Stones Montessori School over the past two years as we have developed our strategic plan. He asks lots of “why” questions and ties discussions and plans back to our mission and back to our philosophy. By starting with the big picture first, the details made so much more sense, and for Montessori professionals, that has been a great gift. Lon observes our team, asks great questions, and then listens with intent.

As a result, our school has a strategic plan that fits our school. We did not end up with something that is cookie cutter or that only follows a formulated process.