Charting Their Own Destiny:

How An SVP Partner Team Helped Career Resources Dream Big

When Scott Wilderman started working with SVP, he admits it wasn’t smooth sailing at first. “We probably went through all the group dynamics that one would expect from a nonprofit, everything from storming, norming, and performing,” said Wilderman, the President and CEO of Career Resources, Inc. (CRI). His organization offers workforce development support to under-employed people and the re-entry population. SVP Partner Chris Kunhardt said he and his team took the long view and spent a lot of time listening upfront and trying to understand CRI. “The secret sauce has been the trust we built,” Kunhardt said.

“I see SVP as almost an organizational coach and a therapist. Oftentimes [nonprofits] are running so quickly, you don’t have a chance to step back and catch your breath and know the direction you’re running.”

Scott Wilderman,
President and CEO of Career Resources, Inc.

Once that foundation of trust was built, the SVP partnership allowed CRI to look beyond the day-to-day; they worked together to hire a Chief Development Officer and start up a temporary employment agency employing reentering citizens. Since then, CRI’s fundraising capacity has grown immensely. In the last 18 months, they’ve raised close to $2 million of unrestricted revenue. Wilderman said while much of that money is going to a new building, it means much more to CRI. “Development is so much more than just a building,” he said, “it’s about our ability to chart our own destiny.”