Ad Hoc Committee Contributes to Impactful Progress

By Meggan Thompson

Improving engagement, role manageability and overall satisfaction at the leadership level was determined an important action area by our Board of Directors. In early January 2021, an Ad Hoc committee – which became known as the Leadership Structure Ad Hoc - was formed to discuss this topic. The committee established four goals they wanted to achieve: to enable strategic, longer-term planning for our organization, improve satisfaction and engagement at the leadership level, increase manageability of leadership roles, and to facilitate better collaboration between leadership. After almost three quarters of a year of extensive research, the committee proposed amendments at the September 2021 General Membership Meeting. The following changes were approved: creating a stronger strategic and annual planning process; separating JLC Policies and Procedures so that The Policies would be governed by the Board and the Procedures would be governed by the EMT; and forming a new Core Leadership Team. Kate Fortlage, President Elect, and a member of the Ad Hoc Committee said, “Truly, this was one of my favorite committees I’ve participated in and cannot wait to see the plan in action next year because I believe it is really positive for our organization.” The Core Leadership Team will be made up of the President, President Elect, Managing Director and two new roles of Executive Vice President (EVP) and Executive Vice President Elect (EVPE). The EVP and EVPE will support the day-today operations of the Junior League of Cincinnati and will preside over the meetings of the Executive Management Team. These changes are intended to allow us to divide leadership responsibilities between governance (the Board) and management teams (the EMT). Because of this division of responsibilities, the changes should allow our organization to dedicate more time to longer-term strategic planning and enable us to have a stronger focus on helping our Cincinnati community. This investment in the League by way of thorough selfassessment and commitment to research demonstrates the continual advancement of our organization. Fall leadership applications for the 2022 year became available in midSeptember, including three of the new Core Leadership Team roles as well as a board position with our new community partner, The Family Nurturing Center.