Company Background

The Ministers and Missionaries Benefits Board, founded in 1911, is a New York-Based non-profit organization which provides retirement, death, disability and other benefits for ministers, missionaries and lay employees of churches and organizations of American Baptist Churches and MMBB affiliate groups. MMBB has managed entrusted resources ”for the better maintenance of the ministry” for close to 100 years. What started as a simple trust fund has evolved into a comprehensive benefits suite for churches and related organizations. Headquartered in New York City with nearly 100 employees, MMBB serves it’s members around the world.

Engagement

We were originally retained to recruit the top Communications person for the organization. We began the search in September by working with the CEO and Executive Director and the Director of Human Resources and Operation. We assisted MMBB in creating this new position — writing the position description, conducting primary research to identify prospective candidates, screening and presenting a slate of qualified candidates. By November, the leading candidate was selected and offered the job. He began in his newly created role in December. Successfully adding this talented person to MMBB’s senior management team has enabled them to plan for the organization’s current and future strategic communications with their members, as well as plan for their upcoming 100 Year Anniversary.

After successfully completing this executive search for MMBB, we began a dialogue with the CEO and Executive Director about executive compensation, succession planning and board governance. To accomplish this work, we interviewed the entire MMBB Executive Team and key members of MMBB’s Board of Managers. During these interviews we gained a deep understanding of MMBB’s mission, business model and organizational goals. We also learned how economic conditions and demographics would affect their business going forward. We gained insight into what was working well for MMBB organization and what would need to change. We were able to assess the current governance policies and practices of their Board of Managers, and to recommend ways to enhance what they were doing. Based on the results of our Management and Board interviews and our understanding of their business model, we gained a thorough understanding of MMBB’s mission, business model and organizational goals. Based on the interviews we conducted and the recommendations we made to MMBB, we were asked to continue our engagement. We then helped them integrate and implement changes to executive compensation, board governance, succession planning, and the overall realignment of MMBB from a person-centered to a functionally-based organization.

Results

We were able to recruit and hire a new leading Communications professional for MMBB in less than 90 days.

We also accurately assessed where the organization stood on several key factors surrounding executive compensation, succession planning and overall board governance policies and practices.

In addition, we helped MMBB’s Executive Management team successfully re-align the organization around a newly-created, functional business model which places more emphasis on sales than service. During this part of our work, we collaborated with the Board and helped them prioritize changes to their policies and practices to enable them to become even more effective.