News from Executive Director Carrie Hoops

Dear TACS Community:

In the middle of only my fourth month as the leader of this exceptional organization, I am struck by both the diversity of nonprofits that are served by TACS and the broad scope of services we provide to them. These two points are at the center of the exciting, yet challenging, work ahead. As you might imagine it's been a very busy summer, and as we head into the next season there are a couple of things I want to share with you:

Murdock Convening
In August I met in Seattle, Washington with a cohort of regional management service organizations similar to TACS—all recipients of capacity building grants from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The cohort group as a whole is working to determine how we all can work together to strengthen the nonprofits of the Pacific Northwest. This support has been invaluable in terms of building TACS' internal capacity—I offer deep thanks to the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

Strategic planning
TACS is in the midst of conducting a strategic plan with board, staff, and key stakeholders in a collaborative community building experience. Although TACS staff includes skilled facilitators, we took our own recommendation and hired an outside consulting firm from San Francisco called the Grove (www.grove.com) to assist with this work. Their unique approach is based on graphic tools that enable organizations to visualize and implement change, and two of their very adept facilitators have just taken us through a two-day process where we developed a shared view of TACS' current realities and service environments. We should have a completed plan by early December.

TACS welcomes new board member
We are honored to have recently been joined by our newest board member, Meredith Savery. With over thirty years' experience as a nonprofit leader, and as consultant to more than forty of Portland's organizations, Ms. Savery brings with her vast knowledge in many areas of organizational development and planning, as well as a deep understanding of our sector.

In the coming months, I look forward to meeting all of the people of the TACS community and hearing about how you think TACS can continue to serve the nonprofits of the state. I hope you will feel free to contact me any time.

Carrie Hoops
Executive Director, TACS

Carrie can be reached at cae@tacs.org.