South Texas Juvenile Diabetes Association
Building a Structure to Soar
The Challenge:
South Texas Juvenile Diabetes Association (STJDA) enhances the lives of children living with diabetes through personal empowerment, family support, community awareness, and public advocacy. Founded in 2011 by a group of parents in the Rio Grande Valley who wanted to support each other and other families raising children with Type 1 diabetes, STJDA has grown and adapted alongside the families it serves, including a growing number of children living with Type 2 diabetes. Cielo Strategy Group met STJDA in 2019 through the Knapp Community Care Foundation’s (KCCF) nonprofit capacity-building program, and what started as a single organizational assessment turned into a partnership that’s carried STJDA through a pandemic, a 10th anniversary, and now, the groundbreaking of their dream facility. As STJDA grew, its infrastructure hadn’t caught up with its mission. KCCF, one of STJDA’s funders, wanted a clear picture of the organization’s strengths and areas for growth before making further funding decisions, so it contracted Cielo Strategy Group to conduct a full organizational assessment. That assessment revealed a clear need: STJDA didn’t yet have the board governance structure, staff and volunteer policies, and shared operational planning that a growing nonprofit needs to operate consistently and with confidence. Then, just as Cielo and STJDA began executing that plan in 2020, the pandemic hit, and the need shifted overnight to crisis communications and program continuity.
Our Approach:
Once our assessment identified what STJDA needed, KCCF’s grants committee used our findings to fund STJDA’s growth through targeted capacity-building funding, and Cielo stayed on for a nearly year-long partnership to build what the plan called for, hand in hand with STJDA’s team. That meant creating a Board Handbook with everything a board member needs to succeed: an onboarding and orientation process, board policies, a board calendar, an agreement and commitment form, committee charters, meeting agenda and minutes templates, job descriptions, an organizational chart, and evaluation forms, all housed online so every member always had the latest version. It meant updating STJDA’s Employee Handbook, building a new Volunteer Handbook from the ground up, and developing an operational work plan to guide staff and board activities for the full year. When the pandemic reshaped everything in 2020, we didn’t retreat to the original plan; our focus shifted to external and crisis communications and to coaching STJDA’s team through running programs, services, and events in a suddenly different world. Foundational work matters, but so does showing up for what an organization actually needs in the moment.
From Our Partner:
“The Cielo team has been a trusted partner, strengthening our organization from the inside out. After facilitating our initial organizational assessment, they identified key areas we needed to focus on to move our mission forward. They didn’t just give us a report with recommendations, they jumped in and created the infrastructure we needed to help us operate more effectively – from basic Board governance documents and processes to a staff and volunteer handbook, to operational planning and goal-setting. They have coached me to become a better leader. As we celebrated our ten-year anniversary, we accepted a transformational gift to purchase our own land and build upon our vision. We could not have done this without ‘getting our house in order’, which is what Cielo Strategy Group did for us.”
– DEBRA FRANCO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH TEXAS JUVENILE DIABETES ASSOCIATION
The Outcome:
Cielo’s three-month organizational assessment gave KCCF’s grants committee the information it needed to fund STJDA’s growth and sustainability. Over the following year, we built STJDA a Board Handbook, an updated Employee Handbook, and a new Volunteer Handbook, along with an operational calendar that gave staff and the Board a shared plan of work. When COVID-19 hit, we pivoted to crisis communications and program coaching so STJDA could keep serving families through an unpredictable year. When KCCF’s capacity-building program wrapped for its first cohort of nonprofits, we stayed in touch. STJDA later came back to Cielo for a new, comprehensive program assessment, the kind of relationship we aim to build: one an organization returns to, not just moves on from. Since our first assessment, STJDA has celebrated its 10th anniversary, secured a 40-acre plot of land through its first major gift, and started building their dream facility for children and families living with diabetes. We’re proud to have helped build the foundation underneath that growth.
