Time for Lyme teams with Harvard Business School Alumni to Increase Impact, Grow Lyme Disease
Research, Education, Prevention Work

Time for Lyme, Inc. partnered recently with Harvard Business School Club of Connecticut Community Partners to examine best management practices and accountability, and design a new organizational structure to help TFL expand its reach. Since 1998, TFL has raised more than $4 million, developed a school curriculum, lobbied for federal funding for Lyme disease research, education and prevention and acted as an information clearinghouse. Along with the Lyme Disease Association, it also established the world’s first endowed research center dedicated to finding a gold standard test and cure for tick-borne diseases, the Columbia University Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Center, which opened in April 2007.

”We knew it was time to expand and grow to the next level,” Diane Blanchard, Co-President, TFL says. “As an organization poised for sustainable growth, Harvard Business School CT Community Partners offered to help us take the next giant step.”

Through its pro bono consulting services, HBS CT Community Partners works with nonprofits to identify ways to achieve greater results. “That means keeping the passion and dedication that has made a grassroots organization like Time for Lyme so successful while helping them improve their management structure to take best advantage of their strengths,” says Nancy Tafoya, Community Partners team member and managing partner with Solutions in Practice, LLC, a consulting firm in CT. In the case of Time for Lyme, we recognized a very exceptional organization ready to expand their strategic goals.

The work between TFL and Community Partners took place from May through November 2008. According to Blanchard, Time for Lyme will begin to implement the Harvard recommendations including hiring a paid executive director and other executive management, creating a Scientific Advisory Committee and creating impactful brand messaging.

About HBS Club of Connecticut Community Partners

HBS Club of Connecticut Community Partners (http://www.hbsconnecticut.org/) was established in 2004 by the Harvard Business School Club of CT to provide alumni
the opportunity to apply their business and management skills as volunteer consultants working on challenging and worthwhile projects in the nonprofit sector. Since the formation of Community Partners as a 501c3 nonprofit entity, the organization has delivered over $3 million in pro bono consulting services to leading nonprofits in the state of Connecticut.