The Story of SVLF
Guiding ever-more successful nonprofits transforming lives and building legacies.
The Work of SynerVision
SynerVision Leadership Foundation (SVLF) was an idea germinating over many years while Hugh Ballou served churches as musical director, developing and implementing programs that influenced and impacted people’s lives over 40 years. He had the pleasure of working with amazing leaders who enabled him to conceive and execute creative programming. In addition to working within the organizations in internal programs and outreach events, he worked with local and national nonprofit organizations in reviewing and revising their systems and upgrading their performance from the leader outward.
Ballou’s model of the musical conductor, a transformational leader stands alone as a unique methodology in educating leaders in any field about what a musical conductor does to create high-performing cultures and build community – it’s the synergy from a common vision – the birth of the name SynerVision®.
In the churches where Ballou was music director, there were counseling centers for people to have access to
needed therapy, regardless of their ability to pay. It was, and is, in this situation critical for them to pay something to have an investment in their own work, in addition to their time. Ballou applied that principle to recreate a program for small, tax-exempt organizations needing an upgrade in skills and systems, in order for them to be able to fully achieve their missions.
In this unique methodology, the paradigm of the “Consultant” model has been upgraded to the “WayFinder” principle, in which the SVLF team of experts in multiple areas partners with nonprofit leaders and teams to provide systems for learning and implementing their vision in a contiguous interconnected process to eliminate gaps in skills or systems. A typical in-kind matching grant program has three to four WayFinders assigned to the project for a period of one year to achieve sustainable results. The matching in-kind grant is funded by private or corporate donations, corporate sponsorships, or grants supplemented by the organization’s matching payment, based on their budget and financial condition. Smaller organizations that need the most help often have the least amount of funding to invest in their structure, skills, and systems for sustainability.
As of 2020, SVLF has an active online community of nonprofit leaders, a quarterly magazine, weekly livestreams of interviews with thought-leaders, live workshops and trainings, two podcasts, active blog posts from authorities in many fields, and multiple online learning programs, some approved by organizations for continuing education credits.
