We are a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, professional consulting and coaching services to other nonprofit agencies, schools, faith-based organizations and government entities in our local community. We pull from only the best of the best, to raise everyone up together, stronger, and better.
Our services include:
A well-designed strategic plan sets priorities, guides effective decision-making, and paves the way to sustained growth for your nonprofit. In other words, it’s the roadmap by which you base your organization’s path. We start by engaging your team in a highly collaborative and customized process that’s designed to help you define and achieve your mission-driven goals, ensuring your relevance, and building sustainability.
All strategic plans contain 3 basic components:
The NOW – Where are we, as an organization?
The FUTURE – Where do we want to be/go?
The PATH – How do we get there?
While we do follow the Classic Method of Strategic Planning from a foundational perspective, we know that every organization is unique and will require their own path. Having this flexibility gives you the opportunity to create your own path and allows us to customize the experience to fit your needs.
We have also introduced the use of Appreciative Inquiry into our suite of strategic planning services, which encourages organizations to build on the things they do well, their successes and their strengths.
Most strategic planning processes are a combination of some of the above mentioned “tools”. We meet the client where they are, and help design a custom process to meet individual needs.
The success of a nonprofit can be directly linked to the engagement and effectiveness of its board. We’ve found that long-standing practices established under previous leadership may hinder growth and change. Understanding that each board is unique, our customized approach addresses each distinct challenge to help the organization grow and adapt to present situations.
Our consultants work closely with the board and staff leadership to clarify board roles and responsibilities, and strengthen board engagement with contributions to recruitment, oversight, planning, fundraising and overall organizational development. By identifying all of these areas, we’re better able to help your board to better understand and fulfill its governance responsibilities.
Ensuring a more sustainable organization that draws in donors and secures grants, hinges on good financial management. Our financial consultants specialize in helping you set up initial accounting framework, provide budgeting assistance, review, and advise on financial reporting and evaluate internal controls.
We also provide a comprehensive checkup that includes assessments of:
- Income sufficiency to ensure stable programming
- Diversity in funding sources
- Clarity on real costs of programming
- Intentional building of cash reserves to cover shortfalls and program growth
- Documented & realistic budgeting
- Budgeted annual surplus
- Revenue and expense projections are available for planning
- Stable and capable financial staff is in place
- Management and finance ensure appropriate-level decision-making
- Board empowerment to carry out its roll
- Ethical reporting and accounting are ensured
COACHING
Successful nonprofits are driven by strong leaders. Our one-on-one leadership coaching for nonprofit executive, staff, and board leaders is designed to assist in strategizing about specific management challenges, building leadership skills and improving organizational effectiveness.
This is a highly confidential and dynamic working relationship — one designed to meet individual needs and enhance leadership capacity. The consultant serves as coach, thought partner, guide and valuable resource throughout the entire process.
EXECUTIVE SEARCH
The direction and tone of a nonprofit starts with the people, which means finding the right candidates is of the utmost importance. Our skilled specialists work with the board members and staff, using a similar process as executive search firms, but at a greatly reduced fee. Our consultants can help create a position description, post the opportunity, review applications, complete phone screens, and prepare the search committee to review finalist candidates.
Once a hire is made, agencies may want to also consider a coaching engagement, to assist with onboarding and to support the new staff member for success in their new role.
HR SUPPORT
A well-organized nonprofit has a greater likelihood of success. Our human resource consultants bring years of field experience and career accomplishment to their work with nonprofit and public agency clients and can assist with review and recommendations for:
- Agency policies and procedures
- Updates to employee handbook
- Writing job descriptions
- Organization structure and workflow
- Compensation review, analysis
- Analyzing benefit plans
The sustainability of most organizations relies on consistent and diverse forms of fund development. Our consultants bring years of experience and knowledge to provide your nonprofit with:
- Grant/funder research
- Grant review
- Feasibility studies (less than $1M)
MEETING FACILITATION
Proper communication is the key to growth and development of any successful nonprofit. Whether it be a board retreat, strategic planning session, input session with clients, or any other meeting, our consultants provide the objective third-party facilitation to enable open communication in your organization. It’s our main objective to support your meeting goals and to allow you to fully participate in the discussion.
INTERVIEWS
We provide interview design, execution, and interpretation services that help provide unbiased information through valuable stakeholder and staff interviews. Our consultants have been trained in interview techniques and provide summary data that allows respondents to remain anonymous.
Our NonProfit Checkup is a user-friendly review and discussion process which helps organizations prioritize their next steps for organizational growth. During the checkup, you will be paired with a team of facilitators who will lead you through a data collection process and present a summary of findings and insights to guide your organization toward activities to strengthen your capacities. Key competencies to be measured include Leadership, Management, Operations, Adaptability, and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA).
Organizational Checkups are available at no cost to all Basic and Premium level member organizations.
CUSTOMIZED CONSULTING
No two organizations are the same, making customized consultation a key to meeting the organizational priorities of your nonprofit. Our consultants provide critical feedback and assist in the development of implementation strategies in a wide variety of skill areas. With over 100 consultants, we have a wide breadth of experience to share.
Check with us to see how we can help! We do not take on a project if we do not have a consultant with skills to be able to provide professional help.