Eleven years ago, I met Claudia Hepburn when she was the Executive Director at Next 36 (now Next Canada). We clicked right away and have worked closely together since then on all her senior hires. Claudia likes people who challenge her thinking and I enjoy working with clients who like to have their thinking challenged. That’s in addition to the fact that she is a kind-hearted individual who always dreams big. It didn’t surprise me, then, when Claudia was hired to lead the national expansion of Windmill Microlending, an organization that provides microloans to skilled immigrants and refugees to help them restart their careers in Canada. Her goal was to grow the organization ten-fold, from serving 400 new clients per year to 4000.
Growth-oriented and transformational leaders, like Claudia, are helping our industry change how we do business in the NFP sector.
Since joining Windmill, she’s most proud of having built a high-performing and committed team. In her first year, she launched an annual, anonymous staff satisfaction survey, and it reported that 73% of Windmill employees were happy with Windmill. That number improved substantially for each of the next two years, and for the last three years, staff satisfaction has been steady at 90%. 100% of staff agreed with number of statements, including “I am proud to be associated with Windmill” and “On a typical day I enjoy my work” and “the leadership team is highly respected”. Claudia believes that when people enjoy their work and find it meaningful, they are dedicated to achieving positive change and meeting Windmill’s organizational milestones. The impact on Windmill’s clients? The average client more than triples his or her income as a result of Windmill’s affordable loans and coaching supports. That means a higher quality of life for newcomer families and economic gains for Canada. And Windmill is able to help more clients each year.
What has Claudia learned from leading two very different NFP organizations? Hire people who are not only skilled, but also passionate about your cause. Only become a CEO if you are willing to hire people who are smarter and more knowledgeable than you are; and don’t shy away from the business of fundraising, it’s just too important for the any CEO with growth objectives to ignore . And finally, keep your own learning curve steep. Acknowledging that, Claudia hired a coach to keep improving her skills to meet the needs of a growing organization.
What’s most exciting about Windmill’s future? In addition to increasing the number of new loans to 4,000, Windmill is working with the federal government and some other innovative charities, @Talent Beyond Boundaries and @TalentLift, to launch a pilot program to offer resettlement loans to skilled refugees who with Canadian job offers. But more on that in 2022.
Thanks, Claudia, for continuing to inspire and motivate—not just me, but everyone you come in contact with.
