The new year offers opportunities to reflect and refine our approach to serving you. Here are a few things we want
to share.
Our Strategic Initiatives: We are in the midst of a transition intended to better meet your needs. The planning for these changes began last year and implementation will continue beyond 2022. The first step in the transition is shifting our staff to enable business continuity and succession planning.
Our Terminology: We will begin moving away from using the name Foundation for deferred gift management and Foundation Funds for asset management. We will begin using language more aligned with the products/services we are offering, which is Deferred Gifts and Organizational Investing.
Our Operations: Since our inception, we have been working primarily from the Church of the Brethren General Offices (Elgin, Illinois) with only a few staff working remotely. Since March 2020, the entire staff has been successfully working remotely, so we have transitioned to a smaller suite of offices in Elgin, and will continue to use technologies such as internet-based phone systems and video conferencing to support our work-from-home operations. This shift enables us to hire talented staff from around the country to fill open positions within our organization.
Our Products and Services Team: To enable more nimble decision making, we have transitioned to a smaller executive team of four, down from seven. We evolved our Director team to work horizontally across the organization rather than through department silos. This evolution brings our Organizational Investing team together under the same group as our Pension and Insurance staff. This group also includes a Client Servicing team that will develop staff knowledgeable in all of our products
and services.
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Client Servicing Team: Our Client Serving team will be led by Loyce Swartz Borgmann, who has served BBT clients for more than 20 years. She succeeds Scott Douglas, who is retiring at the end of January. Steve Mason, reporting to Loyce, will continue to be the primary contact for most Organizational Investing clients as the team draws on his many years of stellar customer service, wisdom, and expertise.
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Organizational Investing Team: Our Organizational Investing team will be led by Dan Radcliff, who has been working with our organizational investing clients since he joined us in 2020. Dan will take the lead in organizational investing product leadership. Sherri Crowe, reporting to Dan, will continue in her operations role.
Our Focus: Our focus continues to be you and your organization. We value our relationship with you and look forward to continued opportunities to serve you. In the future, we will be expanding the content of these Executive Notes to include news and updates about all of our products and services. Please reach out to Lynnae Rodeffer at lrodeffer@cobbt.org or (224) 242-2358 if you have questions, comments, or concerns.
