Subaltern
Strategies

Advisory practice · Washington, DC

Strategy, design and delivery for organizations moving resources toward justice.

I work with foundations, intermediaries, collaboratives and donors who want their programs, funds and services to reach the communities they were built for, and who need the strategy, the model and the daily work of delivery to hold together. Twenty years inside organizations doing this work. Engagements taken on selectively, with care.

Start a conversation How we might work together

Experience inside

Why this work

The work is one whole, not three parts.

Too often, the people who set a strategy, the people who design the program or service, and the people asked to run it on a budget are three different groups who never quite meet. Good intentions get lost in the handoffs, and the organizations and communities on the receiving end feel it first.

I have spent my career in the middle of those handoffs, and I believe the work goes better when someone can hold the whole of it: what we are trying to do, how it will work, what it will cost, who will carry it, and how we will know it is working. That is what I bring to the organizations I work with.

Who I work with

The people responsible for what a funding organization does, and how well it does it.

Foundations and funder collaboratives

Leaders setting strategy, designing programs and funds, and working out what it will take to run them well: the model, the economics, the team, and the measures that matter.

Intermediaries and pooled funds

Executives building or reworking a service model so that it truly serves the projects and partners who depend on it: what is offered, to whom, at what cost, by which team, and on what economics.

Donors and family offices

People setting up or rethinking a giving vehicle or a social enterprise who want the strategy, the structure and the delivery designed together, with real respect for the organizations on the other end.

Nonprofits and movement organizations

Executive directors and boards designing new programs or earned-revenue lines, working through growth, governance and finance decisions, or deciding what form a new initiative should take.

What I do

How we might work together.

Services in detail

Strategy and model review

A careful look at whether your strategy, your program or service design, your economics and your operating model still fit together, and where they have drifted apart. You come away with a short written point of view and a sequenced set of decisions, each with what it will cost.

Program, fund and service design

Designing and standing up the work itself: a grantmaking program, a service line, an earned-revenue model. Together we work out the offer and who it is for, how decisions get made, the pricing or budget logic, the team that will deliver it, and the systems and measures that will keep it honest.

Executive and board advisory

A standing relationship with an executive director, COO or board: someone to think with on strategy, economics, team, governance and risk as decisions come up, and to lean on when leading people through change.

Launch

Bringing a new fund, program, service line, collaborative or social enterprise into being: the strategy and business model, the structure and governance, the operating backbone, and a plan for the day it stands on its own.

Experience

What I have built and run.

Strategy and models

  • Turning strategy into priorities, plans and the measures to run by
  • Service-line economics: revenue, cost to serve, sustainability
  • Cross-functional service models across advisory, finance and people

Programs, funds and services

  • Participatory and trust-based grantmaking, designed and run
  • Services to fiscally sponsored and intermediary-held projects
  • Workforce development programs, from design to delivery

Delivery and teams

  • Leading senior advisors and the teams behind them
  • Partner relationships, retention and the hard calls
  • Leading people through new operating models and systems
Ray Meadows

About

Ray Meadows

I have spent twenty years inside the organizations that move resources toward social change, most recently as Director of Operations at Borealis Philanthropy and now as Managing Director of Advising Services at Tides Center, where I lead the advising practice of the country's largest fiscal sponsor. I serve as board treasurer of Moore Philanthropy.

I grew up in the kind of community much of philanthropy says it wants to serve, and I came to this work through direct service and organizing. It is why I pay attention to who carries the weight of a process, who is treated as a partner, and who gets to decide.

More about Ray and the name

Contact

Let's start with a conversation.

Tell me about the work you are trying to do. I will be honest about whether I am the right person for it and whether I have room. If I am not, I will do my best to point you to someone who is.

Schedule a call info@subaltern.org

How I work

I am selective about the engagements I take on, and I will say early if I am not the right fit. Most begin with a referral and a conversation. Pricing is on a sliding scale by the size of the organization, and we agree the scope in writing before we begin.