Bearing Witness

Share Our Strength board supports capacity building

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Share Our Strength board met in NY last week, hosted by Danny Meyer at the offices of the Union Square Hospitality Group the morning after they had won three James Beard awards, including for Best Restaurant for Eleven Madison Park. Needless to say, we enjoyed a terrific lunch. But there were other important highlights.

We began with our auditors presenting a clean and unqualified opinion about our 2010 audit and the board approving that as well as our IRS form 990. Everyone was encouraged by our significant financial growth, and how well our financial records and information are organized.

We also had an in-depth discussion about our child hunger strategy, led by Chief Strategy Officer Josh Wachs and board member Scott Schoen. It included discussion of how our grant-making fits into the strategy, how we intend to set targets and measure results, along with some preliminary ideas about measurement from Community Wealth Ventures’ Amy Celep.

Most important, the board pushed us to think ahead to how much capacity and infrastructure we need to support continued growth. The Share Our Strength board understands how capacity equals impact and rather than constraining management as some boards do, they wisely coax and coach us to invest in our enterprise, to “put our own oxygen masks on first” so we will be better able to assist those who depend on us.