At Collaborative Consulting, we believe that empathy, passion, and innovation can change the world, and we’re proud to align our efforts with the inspirational work of our social venture and non-profit clients.
Social venture and non-profit leaders challenge people to think differently about how to solve big problems. Through their passion and hard work, these leaders often achieve amazing goals with very limited resources. But the passion and tireless work necessary to start their movement, may not be enough to build a sustainable organization designed for long-term growth and impact. From stiff competition for resources and funding, to the difficulty of creating a clear and unified vision, to the persistent challenge of garnering support, social ventures, however honorable the causes they champion, face a variety of obstacles.
This is why we developed a Transform Capacity Building initiative for social ventures. We leverage the best practices we see in both the for-profit and non-profit world to help organizations looking to scale and amplify their impact for social good.
Working together, we strive to bridge the gap between your current state and your aspirational future by designing a transformational strategy as well as actionable roadmaps, clearly defined success metrics, the skills, resources, and training to achieve your bold vision for the future.
Transform Capacity Building Deliverables
Transform will leverage your passion and commitment and then supplement it with the organizational discipline needed to expand your reach and grow your organization. Our work together will help you identify your existing assets, understand how to leverage these strengths even further and build new muscles to confront the challenges of a growing organization. You will build the strategy, capabilities and implementation tools you need to reach your most aspirational vision for the future – all leaders will be aligned to amplify your impact for social good!
Vision, Mission & Impact
- Our approach begins with a holistic assessment of the organization, its constituents, infrastructure, goals, and capabilities. Often organizations write vision, mission and impact statements that fall flat when it comes to inspiring communities to act on their behalf. We actively partner to build a bold mission and impact statement that are dynamic and inspiring! We then help you define a clear vision for the future as well as the ability to measure results from the impacts. We provide support for organizations looking to build evidence, including employing the concepts of design thinking that allow you to quickly test, learn and continuously amplify your impact
Capability & Leadership
- There are many outstanding qualities that leaders demonstrate to get non-profit work off the ground and inspire others to join in on this journey. These traits are not always the same qualities that help formalize the organizations’ work and build the infrastructure to grow over the long-term. In Transform, we help to ensure that both types of leadership are present so organizations are motivated with passion and led with sustainable growth. We spend time tailoring capability evaluations to help leaders identify unique strengths and distinct challenges. We work together to build a training, coaching and growth mindset culture to align your organizational capabilities with your vision and impact goals. By building this talent and leadership muscle, organizations are better able to set expectations, drive accountability and strengthen your leadership bench to create a bold impact
Development & Funding
- Long-term funding is the number one worry keeping social venture leaders up at night. We do a deep dive into your current development efforts and using analytics, we assess the return on investment you are receiving for time and effort spent. Based on the insights we develop together, along with best practices we’ve researched, we partner with you to create a development strategy along with an implementation plan and the tools you need to execute your funding goals.
Marketing & Telling Your Story
- People are bombarded with stories, messages, viral videos, crowdsourcing requests and social media posts. We work with you to become a marketing guru that can not only tell your story but also drive audiences to act on your behalf. Our efforts together will make you more effective in reaching your donors and key funding partners, competing for investment, ensuring that your name is synonymous with your message and building mutually-beneficial partnerships.
Growth Plan for Results and Impact
- Given the unpredictable nature of the world today, strategy is often reactive or put on the back burner all together. We partner with social ventures to shape and map out their path toward significant growth. We work together to discover and quantify untapped opportunities and set long-term (3 to 5 year) development, impact and program goals. We ensure that key resources are aligned with these priorities, tools, technology and capabilities required to achieve goals as well as impact are up and running, and a measurable plan for implementation is in place to drive successful outcomes.
Beyond Capacity
When a Non-Profit Must Scale Up or Burn Out
The Problem
Our client was a new non-profit organization that was operating over-capacity and was unable to meet the exponentially increased demand for its services. The founder had a bold vision for the future: to help heal every child in the world who was suffering from the effects of early trauma, abuse, or neglect. Her team had proven that their methods could work in small, controlled settings. The challenge now was to scale up the organization, so as to create a larger, global impact and help more kids in need. To accomplish their vision, the organization needed to develop a sustainable growth model to build capacity. Without a cohesive, actionable plan, it risked staff burnout and limited its own potential to heal the lives of countless children.
Our Actions
- Clarify the vision and intended impact
- Identify strategic priorities and develop a phased growth plan with infrastructure and resource requirements
- Put in place a staffing plan to scale efforts over the next five years
- Ensure that leadership had the capabilities needed to drive exponential growth
- Develop meaningful metrics to evaluate the program’s success and support the case for growth funding to scale up
- Identify best practices and recommend a vetting process for selecting partners
- Recommend a fundraising strategy to support capacity building activities and meet the long-term needs of the organization
The Result
- Within five years, the organization expanded national and international outreach and increased the number of people trained in its program by more than 3,400%
- The organization increased staff by 150% and moved into a larger, donor-funded facility
- Received over $25 million in grants and gifts to support programs and establish a multimillion dollar endowment