Building the Governance Backbone for the International Rescue Committee's Global Web Strategy
The International Rescue Committee runs one of the most complex digital operations in the nonprofit world — a mission spanning continents, revenue crossing borders, and teams organized by both market and function. The IRC engaged Agility Lab as an embedded strategic partner to build a unified web strategy, sequence a realistic technical roadmap, and establish the cross-functional governance that lets a matrixed, multi-market organization carry a cohesive strategy from vision into disciplined execution — and do it again, on a dependable annual cadence.
Aligning a matrixed, multi-market organization
Like most global organizations, the IRC had grown decentralized by necessity. Technical, creative, and strategic planning work had no governing process: needs arrived year-round with no planning rhythm, intake channels were bypassed, and there was no shared basis for deciding what got built or when. A unified web strategy would only hold if the people responsible for executing it — across markets, functions, and disciplines — operated with shared planning frameworks, transparent decision-making, and a common set of KPIs.
Our goal was to align a genuinely matrixed set of stakeholders around a governance model they could all embrace and repeat.
Agility Lab's approach
As project consultant on the IRC's Global Web Strategy, Agility Lab helped the organization move from a fragmented digital operation to a coordinated one — delivering a unified strategy, a governance model, and a KPI framework built to guide the work for years, not just launch it. The engagement centered on three interconnected priorities:
- Set a shared direction — one web strategy that markets and functions could align to, replacing a patchwork of competing requests with a common sense of purpose
- Build the governance to sustain it — transparent planning frameworks, shared prioritization criteria, and aligned KPIs so every team could see how work got planned and measured
- Move execution and compliance together — coordinating platform expansion so the strategy advanced in step with the technical and compliance work underneath it
Setting the strategy and sequencing the roadmap
A unified web strategy is only useful if it tells teams what to build, in what order, and how success will be measured. Agility Lab worked with the IRC to define a revenue-aligned strategy grounded in a simple organizing idea — that the website exists to convert attention into donations and recurring support — and to translate that into an operating plan the organization could actually resource and sequence.
A central recommendation was to resist the instinct to launch straight into a full site rebuild. Instead, we identified the need for a long-term technical roadmap that would power AI-enabled search and personalization, while first addressing years of accumulated technical debt so that a future rebuild wouldn't repeat the same problems. Just as important was establishing measurement: KPI baselines had to be set before optimization testing could begin, giving each market a shared, evidence-based way to judge whether the strategy was working.
What we accomplished together:
- A revenue-aligned web strategy that reframed prioritization from competing internal requests into a clear question of audience and intent, giving teams a shared basis for what belongs on the site and for whom
- A phased technical roadmap that sequenced foundations first — analytics, a continuous-improvement testing framework, and platform upgrades to resolve technical debt — ahead of a full rebuild, reducing the risk of re-introducing the same debt into a new site
- A long-term path toward AI-readiness and personalization, positioning the site to adopt AI-enabled search discoverability and donor recognition as those capabilities matured
- A KPI framework with baselines established up-front, so continuous improvement could be measured consistently and each market could plan against shared targets
- Clear priority pillars that moved the MarTech team from a reactive request queue to a proactive roadmap aligned to those KPIs
Building the governance backbone
The IRC's biggest constraint wasn't strategy — it was coordination. Requests moved through tangled delivery chains, priorities defaulted to whoever advocated loudest, and no team had a clear view of what was planned or in progress. Agility Lab built a governance structure spanning every team that touches the web, replacing ad hoc decision-making with a shared, transparent system the whole organization could work from.
What we accomplished together:
- A governance model spanning MarTech, four market-level teams (including fundraising and digital engagement staff), creative, and conversion rate optimization
- Transparent planning and intake frameworks that replaced bypassed channels and year-round ad hoc requests with a predictable annual cadence
- Shared prioritization criteria, so decisions are judged against the same organizational goals regardless of who raises them
- A closed-loop model where completed work is measured against its goals and those findings feed the next planning cycle
Coordinating platform expansion
Strategy only proves out in execution. Alongside the web strategy, Agility Lab coordinated the IRC's digital fundraising platform expansion — the recurring-giving infrastructure central to the organization's goal of doubling private income — keeping the work moving in step across markets, functions, and multiple project phases rather than stalling in handoffs. Where privacy and data questions touched the technology stack, Agility Lab folded them into the broader governance work, keeping requirements grounded in what the fundraising, digital, and technical teams could realistically own and sustain.
What this means for your organization
Agility Lab's work with the IRC builds on years of experience inside large nonprofit revenue operations, which is exactly why it could translate a governance model into terms that fundraising, digital, creative, and technical teams could each recognize as their own.
If any of this sounds like the challenge in front of your own organization, let's connect.
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