What’s the PLT?
As is commonly the case for nonprofit organizations, when Ashby Village was founded in 2010, Board members did everything. They fulfilled the governance, management and administrative roles and provided services to the members.
As Ashby Village programs and membership grew, it became essential to divide up the organizational responsibilities into manageable segments and hire some professional staff. (Just about every nonprofit organization that survives its early adrenaline-fueled years arrives at this conclusion eventually.)
With the everybody-does-everything business model clearly unworkable, the Board fashioned programs and services into a collection of program teams, each with responsibility for managing specific program areas under the leadership of a designated or “lead” volunteer.
Over time, as the demand for Ashby Village programs and services continued to grow, it became apparent that the individual program teams were functioning admirably on their own, but the number and complexity of things they were doing needed systematic coordination and communication to guarantee smooth functioning among and between them.
So the Program Leadership Team (PLT) was born.
What makes the PLT unique?
Over the years, one of the conspicuous strengths of Ashby Village has been its ability to attract and—especially invaluable—to keep exceptionally talented volunteers. Some volunteers come from outside the organization. Many Ashby Village members also volunteer. This means Ashby Village has a deep bench of volunteers with a unique understanding of the needs of the organization and the culture and values at the heart of its operations. To put it another way, Ashby Village is unusually rich in institutional memory.
The PLT is designed to take maximum advantage of this institutional memory, in essence functioning as a kind of brain trust, operating in an advisory capacity to the Executive Director, and responsible for overseeing all AV programs and services. Equally important, knowledge flows bi-directionally as PLT members take important information and developments back to their respective teams.
Who are the members of the PLT?
The PLT is comprised of dedicated, seasoned volunteer leaders with intimate working knowledge of Ashby Village programming.