case study: Landesa

Scaling an NGO for increased capacity & impact

Challenge:

Landesa, formerly Rural Development Institute or RDI, is a small Seattle-based international nonprofit organization working to secure land rights for the world’s poorest people. Landesa received a surge in grant funding in recent years as land rights became increasingly recognized as a viable tool for poverty alleviation. Seeking to expand the organization’s operational capacity to serve communities across the globe with this funding, Landesa set out to establish new organization functions and add critical staff positions. With limited internal resources and external visibility, Landesa partnered with Waldron to leverage its brand, scope, and scale in talent acquisition and organization development/design.

Solution:

Initially, Waldron collaborated with Landesa’s executive team to adjust their organizational structure and staff positions to enable Landesa to achieve its strategic growth objectives most efficiently and effectively. During this process, Waldron developed an in-depth understanding of Landesa ’s culture in order to most effectively integrate with their operations. To begin building Landesa’s human resources function, Waldron first identified an interim human resources director to help navigate the substantial workforce expansion. At the executive level, Waldron led search processes for three new leadership team members. In the project’s second phase, a Waldron talent acquisition consultant served as a dedicated recruiter for Landesa’s programmatic and administrative positions. Due to the specialized nature of Landesa’s work, the recruiter conducted a thorough search to target best in class candidates for highly technical staff roles such as Landesa’s Senior Land Tenure Expert and Research and Evaluation Specialist among others. Throughout the project, strategic emphasis was placed on alignment of unique values and vision, ensuring a better fit for Landesa. At a critical juncture in their growth cycle, Waldron facilitated an agency retreat that served as a grounding point during what otherwise was a shifting landscape due to significant growth and organizational redesign. With the right structure and talent in place, Waldron was able to then transition most of the talent acquisition responsibilities back to Landesa’s internal leadership.

Results:

Over the course of the project, Waldron led Landesa’s efforts to acquire key talent for ten positions critical to the expansion of the organization’s reach internationally. By employing the firm’s integrated and seamless talent acquisition and organization design outsourcing model, Landesa’s talent acquisition costs were over 60% less than if they had used traditional executive search and contingent staffing models. Leveraging Waldron’s expertise, Landesa has the key talent and structure in place to help more rural poor families throughout the world gain access to land ownership to help themselves out of poverty.