Business Process Design
Change Management
Program Development
Research
Engagement Team Collaborates with One of the Nation’s Largest Child Welfare Nonprofits, to Catalyze a Sector Sea Change
Spire’s two-person team punches above its weight, laying the foundations for a sector-wide transformation in child wellbeing across the State of Texas.
The Original Engagement
Spire was originally brought on board to help the client—Upbring, a 130+ year-old Texas-based child welfare nonprofit—identify its optimal channels and personalities of influence which have a meaningful connection and relationship with the organization. However, it quickly became apparent that Upbring had a myriad of other issues requiring attention prior to reaching out to those influencers.
The organization had been addressing several fiscal and operational issues over the previous few years, making progress on those fronts. Nevertheless, it was missing key ingredients needed as a springboard toward subsequent phases in its ongoing transformation.
An Expanded Challenge and Approach
Spire’s two-person, multidisciplinary engagement team—spanning finance, research, management and brand consulting, through to communications and advertising—quickly immersed itself in a broad and deep discovery process. Key research inputs saw the team spend weeks interviewing numerous stakeholders across the organization, from leadership down; conduct an analysis of existing practices and research; a comprehensive quantitative audience survey, which included a thorough segmentation study across the State of Texas; alongside an audit of the competitive set and its marketing and communications practices.
Thereafter, while developing a multitude of key deliverables from those discovery efforts—encompassing foundational business and brand strategy inputs, messaging, strategic, conceptual and tactical recommendations—the team was able to accelerate the conversion of a few key insights into workable action items. Moreover, it started integrating those action items up, down and across the organization with a view to ensuring it had sufficient time to understand, commit to and deploy those plans.
During the early days of the multi-year engagement, it was obvious that for the organization to have a chance of realizing its mission, to Break the Cycle of Child Abuse, sector wide collaboration and strategic partnerships were paramount. This finding would become a key driver of the Spire’s efforts over the next couple of years.
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A notable increase
In Texas’ ranking for Child Wellbeing across the United States
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Laid the foundation
For an ecosystem transformation, from Child Welfare to Child Wellbeing
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14000 +
per year
Children and families positively impacted by Upbring
Transforming Upbring, from Child Welfare to Child Wellbeing
Texas ranks 43rd in the country for child wellbeing**, while the US ranks 39th in the world*—a surprising statistic for the world’s largest economy.
Hindered by chronic cultural and political partisanship—and rooted in the confines of a box-ticking approach to child welfare—Spire helped lay the foundations for Upbring, to pioneer a path for the Texas child welfare sector, toward a more sustainable future that places children’s best interests at the center of child wellbeing solutions and innovations.
To catalyze these efforts and ensure Upbring was seen a as credible leader to spearhead this charge, Spire collaborated with the client’s key constituents, to identify, amplify and launch game-changing products, programs, innovations and thought leadership initiatives.
This portfolio of innovations and initiatives is gaining greater traction by the day. Moreover, sector change is in full swing, and Upbring, alongside its best-in-class sector partners, is making meaningful headway in its efforts to move the sector from child welfare to holistic child wellbeing.
