Service
Strategic Planning & Implementation
Build a clear, practical plan your board and staff can use to make decisions, align resources, and move the mission forward.
Who this helps
Leaders responsible for a consequential organizational decision.
- Nature centers, land trusts, conservation groups, and environmental education organizations
- Health and human services nonprofits, community-based providers, and multi-program agencies
- Boards and executive teams preparing for growth, transition, or significant investment
- Mission-driven organizations whose current plan has expired, stalled, or no longer guides decisions
What we will accomplish
Strategic planning and retreat facilitation that defines the future the mission requires, makes the necessary choices explicit, and converts the plan into measurable 90-day action. The work welcomes both nature and conservation organizations and health and human services nonprofits.
- A preferred-future statement clear enough to guide decisions
- Three to five consequential strategic commitments with explicit boundaries
- A capacity and readiness blueprint connecting priorities to people, governance, funding, systems, facilities, partnerships, communications, and risk
- A year-one roadmap and first 90-day activation portfolio with accountable owners
- A living impact dashboard and review cadence that make progress visible and support disciplined adaptation
- A board that understands its role in the plan and in monitoring progress
How we work
Understand. Reveal. Choose. Build. Learn.
The same plain, five-stage method guides every service. The depth of evidence and participation is sized to your assignment.
- 01
Understand
Gather the evidence and perspectives needed to see the situation accurately.
- 02
Reveal
Make strengths, constraints, differing perspectives, and underlying causes clear.
- 03
Choose
Frame the real options, tradeoffs, priorities, and decisions.
- 04
Build
Create the substantial working document or roadmap, with responsibilities, resources, measures, and first actions.
- 05
Learn
Review implementation, test assumptions, and adjust while staying grounded in the mission.
Depending on your priorities, your engagement may include
The written proposal specifies the exact deliverables, timing, participation, and fixed fee for your assignment.
- Planning design and stakeholder engagement approach
- Board, staff, member, and community input — interviews, surveys, or facilitated sessions
- Environmental scan and internal capacity summary
- Facilitated board and staff planning retreats
- Written strategic plan: mission framing, priorities, goals, strategies, and measures
- An activation plan: owners, quarterly milestones, first 90-day actions, and a dashboard structure — this is the plan for implementation, delivered inside the engagement
One focused assignment example
A focused assignment might prepare and facilitate a board strategy retreat, then document the decisions, owners, and immediate next steps.
Timing and your participation
A defined planning assignment begins at $12,500. Coordinated strategic work spanning multiple service areas is typically $25,000–$40,000.
Participation is agreed at the outset. It may include the executive director, board chair, senior staff, trustees, and selected stakeholders whose perspective can materially improve the work.
Organizations often reach out when
- The board wants a well-run retreat with a facilitator who is not in the room politically
- The current plan has expired, stalled, or no longer reflects reality
- Leadership transition has changed direction or momentum
- A merger, land acquisition, or facility project is under consideration
- Funders are asking for a current strategic framework
Investment and payment
Beginning at $12,500
Focused Consulting Engagement or Integrated Strategic Direction
Every service can begin as a Focused Consulting Engagement at $12,500, with a defined assignment, deliverables, timing, and fixed fee established in the written proposal. Broader work may be structured as an Organizational Strength Review or Integrated Strategic Direction when the need spans multiple areas.
Every assignment considers connections across the whole organization. Detailed work stays focused on the areas agreed in scope. Range drivers include interviews, board participation, sites, and specialist responsibilities. Travel or specialist expenses are included only when agreed in the proposal.
For larger engagements, the standard schedule is 40% on booking, 30% after the evidence and listening stage, and 30% on delivery. The final schedule is stated in the written proposal.
Major fixed-fee engagements include eight hours of implementation counsel during the 90 days following delivery.
Questions
Before you decide
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Bring the decision in front of you.
A complimentary 30-minute conversation helps establish the situation, fit, and a sensible next step. Detailed analysis and written recommendations begin with a paid engagement. Every engagement is principal-led; appropriate collaborators are added when the scope calls for specialist expertise.
Related: Organizational Strength & Assessment, Governance & Board Effectiveness, Executive Leadership & Counsel
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