What Our Clients Say
I have just come up on my 9-year anniversary with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and it was through The Batten Group that I found out about this opportunity and eventually ended up being placed here as National Vice President of Corporate & Cause Partnerships. Since that period of time, I have been fortunate to lead an incredible team that has doubled in size and has had amazing results including tripling our annual revenue, increasing cause marketing from $2M per year to $30M per year, being a finalist or winner for 9 Halo Awards, increasing new business from 5% to an average of 30% – 50% and having the good fortune to work with some of the top corporations in America, if not the world, and increasing their involvement with the organization. Corporate and Cause was a huge part of the success of the largest fundraising campaign in BGCA’s history, the Great Futures Campaign. We have worked hard to improve on the relationships with the Clubs and have truly come a long way. While in an interim co-senior leadership capacity in 2020 and 2021, we achieved back-to-back record-setting years, quantitatively and qualitatively, during the pandemic. I was recently promoted to Senior Vice President, Resource Development with responsibility for corporate, cause and special events, leading one of the largest teams in the organization with responsibility for 75% of private Total and 66% of private Operating Revenue. There’s much more to be done but it did start with an exploratory call from The Batten Group. Additionally, I have spoken with The Batten Group on several occasions and referred candidates to them for various roles which they have gone on to get, and be successful, and I know that their experience was similar to mine as a candidate. My experience with them as a candidate was one of honesty, openness and transparency, and I found a great position, at an exciting time with a top nonprofit organization, and have enjoyed tremendous success while here.
We partnered with the Batten Group to fulfill our growing Development Team for four markets across the country. Jim provided great candidates that were successfully vetted which led to the Children’s Heart Foundation hiring and completing our Development Team. Discovering great talent that can hit the ground running with very little downtime was crucial – we couldn’t be happier with the team we have in place. The experience and expertise through the process were incredible. Highly encourage your organization to utilize this incredible group in finding the perfect candidate.
Jim and his team are top notch professionals. I’ve used them several times to recruit senior positions at my organization. The candidates presented were very appropriate and the process was smooth. The time savings and efficiency of having someone else doing the leg work and screening was of great value. Jim takes the time to understand the organization so that candidates are chosen who are highly likely to be a good fit for the work and the culture. I expect a great deal from these types of engagements, and The Batten Group has delivered every time – and they stand behind their work! I’ve referred several colleagues at other organizations to Jim, and haven’t heard anything other than praise and appreciation. If you’re looking to recruit strong talent, Jim has the method of finding them. I have great confidence in Jim and his group, and would not hesitate to use them again should the need arise.
I had the pleasure of working with Jim Batten and The Batten Group during my transition into the role of President & CEO of the Immune Deficiency Foundation. I was extremely impressed with the professionalism, experience, and expertise Jim provided every step throughout the process. He leads with integrity, placing the utmost importance on finding the right fit for both the candidate and the organization, and his network is unparalleled.
“While CEO at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, we developed a meaningful relationship with Jim Batten and his firm, The Batten Group. We retained the firm to conduct executive level searches in major markets across the country which resulted in the hires of some of our best staff. The firm’s knowledge of our needs, the market and an extensive network of highly regarded professionals, allowed us a comfort that we would be interviewing the best talent that could be recruited for our specific needs. Jim and his firm bring 30 years of hands on experience in nonprofit, talent acquisition and strategic analysis of the market. We built a relationship of mutual trust, respect and felt confident our organization was always in good hands with Jim and The Batten Group as our strategic search partner. I would recommend The Batten Group to any organization seeking to recruit and attract the best talent for the most demanding and important hires.”