By Executive ArmMar 1, 2022

Sarah Silvestri and Tiferet Sprung started the pandemic like many young American Jews. While trying to balance “a new normal” and their familial responsibilities, they continued to work in their jobs to keep the lights on as best they could. As March 2020 wound down, they both saw a widening gap between most organization’s needs and capacity to execute.

Together Sarah, a veteran Executive Director, and Tiferet, a Data Analyst and Systems Thinker founded Executive Arm, an organization designed to help nonprofits outsource projects and tasks to keep them afloat or push them to excel. Two years into the pandemic, their work has helped their clients cut more than 27% off the bottom line, saved organizations from exhausting their human capital, and helped them set out plans for the future.

Sarah and Tiferet, when you started Executive Arm what were the challenges your clients faced and how did you think you would be able to help them?

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Sarah: In 2020, our clients were overwhelmed. I remember talking to a Rabbi in the northeast and they didn’t know how they were going to handle the tasks outside of their job description while doing the critical pastoral work they needed to do on a much larger scale. We knew how, and together, we knew we could. So we hopped on the first of many zoom calls that March and started working.

Tiferet: Since then, we’ve really developed two tracks for our clients – and those help us differentiate what kind of services they need and how we can be of service. You see, we have clients with 2 employees and those with over 120, and we provide everything from everyday bookkeeping to fundraising strategies and data management services. Most of the time, we find our clients divine the services they need as we work with them. We break it up like this, we have clients who either need an “Assist” or our help with a push to Excel.

Assist or Excel – What do you mean?

Sarah: As a former Executive Director, I know what it takes to keep everything moving forward. Even before Covid-19 there were all sorts of requirements on my time, and then Covid came and we needed to handle remote services and covid protocols. Before our team could even think about putting together a proactive approach to a fundraising calendar or our strategic plan – we needed help. We needed a real Assist, some way to keep us moving forward, while we dealt with staffing issues and a changing environment.

Tiferet: While we started helping orgs survive, our approach is designed to help them thrive in all conditions. Sarah and I are both so excited by the work we do with organizations where the leadership is hyper-focused on the day-to-day operations and brings our team in to help them make their moonshot ideas a reality. And in the last two years, it’s these partnerships that motivate us every day.

For more information on Executive Arm, visit ExecutiveArm.org. Executive Arm is a full-service management outsourcing firm for nonprofit organizations with a focus on internal capacity development, executive coaching, and strategic program design.

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