Need: Finding a community leader to head community foundation
Service: Executive search
Aware of its work in finding a chief executive officer for Philanthropy Ohio, the Muskingum County Community Foundation selected Smith Beers Yunker to facilitate its search for a new CEO. To succeed the retiring executive, the Foundation hoped to find a respected leader who was familiar with the region to take the Foundation to the next level of philanthropic leadership.
Tim McLain, Search Committee Chair, commented on Smith Beers Yunker’s experience which gave the Foundation confidence in choosing the right candidate for the position: “I think Jim Yunker’s assistance to us was invaluable in helping us choose the right person. His leadership to our committee – and his experience – was something we all felt was very helpful. We were very appreciative about everything he brought to the table.”
“I was a little apprehensive about the fact that the firm was in the Cincinnati. I was hoping we could find someone more local to us, but I actually found the distance not to be an issue at all. Jim was always available when we needed him, and the geographic distance just wasn’t a factor.”
Search Committee member Greg Adams noted: “It was a really positive experience. We benefited from Smith Beers Yunker’s experience in the field, and I was very pleased with how everything went.”
Both Greg and Tim valued the way Smith Beers Yunker’s involvement kept the process tracking in a timely and efficient way. Tim emphasized that: “Jim’s assistance allowed us not to have to go into the weeds with the candidates and helped keep us focused and on track in our search.”
Greg was particularly impressed by the deliberateness of the search and feels confident that having Smith Beers Yunker on board helped the committee perform its due diligence: “One of the selling points to me was all of the careful steps that made me feel like the diligence was appropriately applied, and that we weren’t missing a step. The whole thing felt very thoughtful and thorough. At no point during the process did I ever feel like we were ‘shooting from the hip’ on this very important decision.”
“For some people in the Foundation world, it can be a little bit of a sticker shock – and can be difficult to understand the value of investing in this process,” Greg acknowledged. “But our Foundation realized that it’s the biggest and most critical decision that we, as a Foundation, will make, and it’s worth it to make the investment. I would have no reservations about recommending Smith Beers Yunker to others.”