For Nonprofits & Social Entrepreneurs
Running a nonprofit or a social venture is a challenging and fulfilling job - we can help you develop & align your strategy with your operations.
We draw on best practices from nonprofits, behavioral science, and business to craft solutions that make your work more effective. We assess your lifecycle stage to provide the supports that are most critical to the continued growth and success of your organization. We believe in empowering staff and creating environments that foster a sense of purpose and encourage on-going learning.
Strategic planning, advising, & implementation
Organizational design & development
Executive coaching
Program development
Landscape Analysis & research
Stakeholder interviews & focus groups
Development consulting
Change management
Extensive experience with nonprofit start-ups, organizations entering their second stage, and nonprofits re-imagining their mission
Selected Client Stories
Aligning Staff Capacity in a Second Stage Organization
A nonprofit organization entering it's "second stage" had grown organically. They knew that their growth was stretching their staff and that roles were not always aligned to the organization's needs or the staff member's interests and strengths.
Steinberg Consulting was hired to design and run an inquiry to map what each role was doing, identify gaps, identify challenges with existing work processes, and learn about employee's professional interests. This led to a redesigned staffing structure that aligned with their strategies for future growth. In addition, as part of the transition to the new structure (which was designed to take place over time), we captured a list of processes impacted by that realignment so that operations could evolve accordingly, and designed a performance management process (with competencies) and a goal setting process. We worked closely with the leadership team to ensure that communications, roll-out of new processes, and training was conducted in keeping with good change management principles.
Pivoting from Strategic Planning to a Strategic Framework
We co-led a strategic planning process for a mature organization that had started the planning process right before COVID shut-downs and realized they needed to take a different approach. Directors decided they wanted to develop a strategic framework as opposed to a 3 year plan. We pivoted to virtual meetings and assisted the organization in clarifying its values, setting parameters for its strategic direction, and engaged a DEI specialist to lead board conversations to enhance their understanding of DEI and explore options to diversify the board.
This process resulted in successful, flexible operations during the pandemic and an actionable plan for board diversification.
Board Meeting Planning & Facilitation
A young organization was holding it's first board retreat. The board was comprised of members from across the US and many of their new directors had never met in person. They had successfully recruited individuals with diverse skill sets, but now needed to activate the board members to help the Executive Director with emerging strategic questions.
They engaged Steinberg Consulting to work with their Executive Director and Board Chair to plan and facilitate a retreat that would build relationships among members, foster increased engagement, and clarify the role of the board. The retreat resulted in increased cohesion, clarity about the organization's current strengths, focused questions for future direction, and a plan for the board to investigate those questions and, with staff, advance emerging strategic priorities.
Strategic Refresh
Increasingly, organizations are recognizing that when a strategic plan "ends" there is is often more to accomplish in the same priority areas. Thus they opt for an abridged strategic process to address questions that emerged during the plan, focus on any new areas which need to be incorporated into planning, and set goals for the next several years.
We worked with a board of one such organization to clarify the questions and design a 3 meeting process to facilitate the board through their strategy discussions. In this case, the board and professional team felt confident that with the information they obtained during this short process they could craft the specific goals. This resulted in increased board ownership of the strategic plan and a significant savings of time and cost.
Start-up Consulting
A young organization with opportunities to expand engaged us to help clarify their direction and strengthen their internal operations. Together, we articulated their strategy to help them make decisions, created a preliminary expansion plan with accompanying financial projections, and instituted a basic fundraising plan. We also coached them on best practices for board management. These steps established critical infrastructure and demonstrated to funders that the organization was prepared to grow their programs.