Services

How we might work together.

Every engagement begins with a conversation about the work you are trying to do. From there we agree a scope in writing, priced on a sliding scale by the size of your organization, and shaped so that what you are left with stays useful to your board and your team long after the engagement ends.

Strategy and model review

For organizations that sense their strategy, their program or service design, their economics and their operating model no longer fit together, and want to understand why before deciding what to change.

How it works

We start by listening: to staff, to the board and, where you want it, to the partners and grantees your work exists for. Then we walk through the strategy, the program or service design, the budget and pricing logic, the operating model and the numbers you manage by, looking for where design, economics and delivery have drifted apart and for what is quietly costing you.

What you are left with

A short written point of view and a sequenced set of decisions, each with what it will cost and what it depends on. Written so your board can read it and act on it.

Program, fund and service design

For funders designing a program or a grantmaking process, and for intermediaries and nonprofits designing a service line or an earned-revenue model. For anyone who has made the commitment and now needs to build the thing well.

How it works

Together we design the offer and who it is for, how decisions will be made and by whom, the pricing, fee or budget logic, the team that will deliver it, and the systems, documentation and measures that will keep it honest. For grantmaking, that includes the practical mechanics of trust-based and participatory practice. We work alongside your staff and board throughout, so the design is theirs.

What you are left with

A program or service that is designed, costed and documented, with the people who will run it ready to run it.

Executive and board advisory

For executive directors, COOs, board chairs and treasurers who want a thinking partner with experience running the work, present as decisions come up rather than after.

How it works

A regular working session and availability in between. We take up whatever is in front of you: strategy and priorities, budgets and pricing, team design and performance, partner and grantee escalations, governance and risk, and the human work of leading people through change.

What you are left with

A standing advisor who knows your organization, cares how it goes, and writes in the language your board uses. I serve as a board treasurer myself and know the seat from the inside.

Launch

For donors, founders, funders and nonprofits bringing a new fund, program, service line, collaborative or social enterprise into being.

How it works

We work through the strategy and business model, the structure and governance, who decides what, and the operating backbone of budget, staffing, systems and policies, along with the finance and reporting a board or donor group will need. Then we plan the first year and the handoff to the people who will carry it forward.

What you are left with

An initiative that can take money, deliver and make decisions from its first day, and a plan for the day it stands on its own.

How engagements work

A few things you can count on.

I am selective about the work I take on, and I will tell you early if I am not the right person for it. Pricing is on a sliding scale by the size of your organization, so smaller organizations are not asked to pay what larger ones can. What I will do, what you will have at the end, and what it will cost are agreed in writing before we begin.

Not sure where to begin?

Let's start with a conversation. Half an hour is usually enough to understand the work you have in front of you and whether I am the right person to help with it.

Schedule a call