As an executive search firm specializing in the nonprofit and social impact sectors, we have the opportunity to pair our clients with a diverse roster of purpose and mission-driven candidates who want to make an impact on a local, state, national, and global scale.
Earlier this year, DRiWaterstone Human Capital successfully placed Jonathan Board as the inaugural Executive Director at the West Virginia First Foundation. We recently caught up with Jonathan to talk about the Foundation, his role there, and his experience working with our executive search team.
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DRiWaterstone Human Capital (DRiW): Tell us a little bit about the West Virginia First Foundation.
Jonathan Board (JB): The West Virginia First Foundation was created very uniquely to deal with the public health crisis here in the state of West Virginia, with opioid abuse, misuse, and substance abuse disorders. There’s been over a decade of litigation, and we were formed as sort of repository for monies that are coming in. The legislature, along with the Attorney General and the Governor’s office decided to create a single source to handle those disbursements and to really get involved meaningfully.
It’s a unique creation – you have a publicly created, private foundation that held public elections for its members to disperse tools out into the field for use by boots-on-the-ground experts.
And we’re building this out of the ether. We’re building this using all the traditional notions of a start-up – from infrastructure to building HR to doing all the things that aren’t as newsworthy as policies and procedures and insurances.
But we have a very unique purpose and goal and that’s to heal a state. We understand that we don’t exist, and we don’t have a dollar, but for the fact that people suffered and died. So, there’s a lot of gravity even as we go through some of these traditional, necessary steps.
DRiW: Have there been any highlights or learnings from your time with the Foundation so far?
JB: There’s something special about having such a local connection. This Board is uniquely local, and working with folks with such intimate knowledge of their own communities and the needs there, and of how diverse those needs are as we focus on healing, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s good to have that kind of wisdom that you can lean on.
[We’re] working to heal a certain community as quickly as we can, but with the understanding that we have to get upstream – we have to think generationally. This is something that’s different in this space, because we know we’re at the waterfall’s edge and we want to work with folks and get them back into their communities and back with their families, but we also have to think ahead 20, 30, 40 years from now, understanding that the actions we take now will affect that.
DRiW: Talk a little bit about your experience working with DRiWaterstone and what stood out to you during the hiring process.
JB: Obviously I had some familiarity with the Foundation, not just in its creation, but in its existence. I’d been with them for a few months on the Board when [DRiWaterstone] came alongside.
Again, this foundation was created through legislation to exist privately. But in that legislation, the Attorney General of the state of West Virginia was empowered and required to appoint an Executive Director. When DRiWaterstone came alongside, they got that my negotiations were with the Attorney General, but my bosses would be a Board – some of whom were elected and some of whom weren’t.
I’m sure there were a lot of discussions that I wasn’t familiar with as the team at DRiWaterstone came together and said, ‘All right, here’s how we’re going to compartmentalize this. Here’s how we’re going to articulate this.’
They did a wonderful job. I was always extremely prepared, and it was not only refreshing, but it was also like having a team alongside me in the process.
DRiW: Was there anything unique about DRiWaterstone’s approach that you hadn’t seen in your past experience working with search firms?
JB: I think what was unique here was that team feel – it wasn’t just a cold, corporate touch point from time to time. There was actual engagement, meaningful engagement, between DRiWaterstone and myself on the regular. As a candidate, I had folks reaching out to me independently and saying, ‘Hey, just want to make sure everything’s going well. Are you prepared for this? Is there anything that we can do?’ I felt that was something that set DRiWaterstone above those that I’ve worked with in the past. So, I was very, very pleased.
DRiW: What advice would you have for a candidate who is looking at working with an executive search firm for the first time?
JB: I will say this: find an executive search firm that treats you truly as a client. One that cares about your success – not just checking the box but working on your behalf through the process. That was something that I found very refreshing in this process and something I would imagine would go a long way.
Look for that direct point of contact, where you don’t have 15 different people reaching out all the time. I had (generally speaking) one contact and he was excellent in communicating information. I think we all have fond memories of our favorite restaurant, or wherever we go for service, and there’s always that interaction point, that touch point with wait staff…and there’s that fine balance between checking in on your customer, making sure they have what they need, but also pulling back and giving them space. I think what [DRiWaterstone] did is find that sweet spot and it was just helpful enough and encouraged me to succeed.
DRiW: What’s next for the West Virginia First Foundation?
JB: Because we’re created by law, publicly in legislation, we have certain milestones that we have to reach. We have certain investment goals that we have to reach. We have unique panels, setting up layers of connection to the private communities that we’re supporting. We’ve been moving very quickly because those things had to be in place before we could start meaningfully dispersing monies back out into those communities.
The next step is developing and refining an engagement model so that we can make sure that the right tools are making it to the right folks, and then understanding how they report that and what success looks like. We’re going through that process now, but we are about ready to open the floodgates, and we’re really excited about that.
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At DRiWaterstone, we have the pleasure to work with some of the best purpose and mission-driven clients and candidates in the nonprofit and social impact space. To learn more about how we can help you build your high-performance teams and drive growth, email us – we’d love to talk!
