‘Key Stakeholders’ Consulted in Divisional Review Process
During Command Annual Review, or CAR, teams from Territorial Headquarters (THQ) travel to and review the eight divisions and two commands (Adult Rehabilitation Centers and Evangeline Booth College) which make up the Southern Territory. This yearly process allows territorial leadership to check in with each division, getting an overview of what is happening at all levels of ministry, what concerns they may have, and where THQ can better provide resources.
Commissioner Kelly Igleheart, southern territorial commander, tells us when the territory launched the new Territorial Priorities in October 2023, leadership recognized they also needed a strategic plan to measure and facilitate those priorities. This led to a revision of the CAR process, as well as the corps Battle Plan review process. “Those three things (CAR, Battle Plan, and the Territorial Priorities) need to align so that they’re speaking a common language and there is a common direction,” Commissioner Kelly explains.
“We live in a day and age where transparency and accountability are more important to all people,” he continues, stating that leadership desires to elevate that transparency and accountability across key stakeholders— field officers, soldiers, and employees of the divisions. “The ‘key stakeholders’ idea really stems from the territorial review that IHQ (International Headquarters) conducts,” Commissioner Kelly says. Territorial headquarters are historically reviewed every three years, but a few years ago, IHQ instituted a halfway check-up visit, which they call a “support visit.” Seeing the benefits of this revised model, leadership began to consider doing something similar at the divisional level.
The new method still includes a review of all eight divisions annually (because both commands are local visits they are conducted differently), but there are now four full reviews and four support visits every year. “They’re all continuing to be reviewed, but one year is comprehensive, and in the next we discuss concerns on emerging issues and the status of the command’s stated goals,” Commissioner Kelly explains. This means that only one THQ review team is needed for the full visits, made up of the territorial commander, the territorial president of women’s ministries, the chief secretary, and three section leaders from personnel, program, and business.
The four support visits require much less documentation and can all be completed in one day. By connecting them to the Territorial Executive Council (TEC), no extra travel is required, allowing for better stewardship of time and resources.
During the full review there are now two hour-and- a-half meetings, first with a group of 8-12 corps officers and soldiers, and second with a similarly sized group of divisional headquarters employees, all chosen by that division’s leadership to represent their demographic for the division. These representatives meet with just the territorial leaders and the chief secretary. In this private and intimate space, these ‘key stakeholders’ are invited to answer a few questions provided by THQ such as: What encourages you most about The Salvation Army today? What would you like the territorial leadership to know? What are ways to improve The Salvation Army? Nothing is recorded, but confidential minutes are taken by the chief secretary.
Leadership is intentional in creating a safe place for open dialogue for these meetings, simply listening and allowing space for these key stakeholders to share their thoughts on some deep subjects. Some of the issues raised this year were about world services, the needs of corps officers, how to support local officers, and soldiers’ concerns over the demands upon corps officers. “Every single one of them finished with a comment that they really appreciated having a voice at the table,” Commissioner Kelly shares, “that they had never been asked to sit down with leadership and have these open conversations.”
In the second day of the review process, the section leaders cover their areas of review (personnel, business, and program) along with comments from the chief and territorial president of women’s ministries, and then the territorial commander concludes with his own feedback. Part of the chief’s report is an account of the key stakeholder meetings. Names and specifics are closely guarded for privacy and confidentiality. “We don’t even couch our response as, ‘These are areas you need to be concerned about or these are areas where things are going really well.’ We don’t really counsel that way.” They simply disclose what questions were asked and what the general responses were.
At the end of the CAR process, divisions are provided with the minutes from these key stakeholder meetings without any speaker names disclosed to maintain confidentiality. THQ is then able to run the minutes from these four divisions through secure and private AI to produce a single overview. “It created a narrative that gave us overall pictures of the entire territory, specifically those four commands, but in many ways, it represents what we think we would hear across the territory,” Commissioner Kelly says. This summary will be presented to the TEC to show the common denominators across divisions and where we as a territory can implement growth strategies.