Before we suggest anything, we take a good look at everything.
The Org Snapshot is how we get to know your organization. Five angles, an honest picture, and a plan built on what's actually true about your work.
Most consulting starts with someone telling you what they think you need. Usually in the first hour. Usually based on the thing they happen to sell.
We wait. Not to be careful, and not because we're unsure. We wait because the thing an organization walks in worried about is almost never the thing underneath it.
Staff keep leaving, and it turns out supervisors were never taught how to supervise. Money feels tight, and it turns out the work is strong but the story isn't reaching funders. The program everyone frets about is doing fine, and a different one nobody mentioned needs attention.
Nobody can see that in an hour. So we take the time to actually look.
We look at your organization five ways. Each one on its own, because your people can be thriving while your systems are stretched thin, and you deserve to know both.
People
Your team. How people get hired, welcomed, supervised, and supported. What your staff would tell you if they knew it was safe. Who has left in the last couple of years, and what they'd say about why.
Community
The people you serve, and everyone around them. What your community thinks of you. What your partners would say. Who you're reaching well, and who hasn't found you yet.
Impact
Whether the work is doing what you say it does. We start with your mission statement and pull out every promise inside it. Then we line up what your organization actually does against each promise. Two things usually turn up. Promises with nothing behind them yet, and hard work your team pours real effort into that has drifted away from your mission. That second one almost always happened slowly, and almost always because a funder paid for it.
Operations
How the work gets done day to day. Your systems, your processes, what's written down, and what would happen if the person who knows how it works took a month off.
Stability
Funding, your board, compliance, and risk. Whether the ground under you is solid.
Each angle gets one of four words. Thriving. Solid. Slipping. Underwater.
One word per angle, and no single score for the whole organization. A single number would tell you nothing about what to do on Monday morning, and it would flatten the parts that are going well.
Most organizations have at least one angle that's Thriving. We say so, clearly, because that's the part you build everything else on.
We start with your leadership
First we explain what an Org Snapshot is and ask what you're hoping for. Then we build your org timeline together: the moments that shaped your organization, the proud ones and the hard ones both.
Then we meet everyone
A session with the whole team. We say out loud that staff voices count as much as leadership's, because people need to hear that before they'll believe it.
Then we look
Surveys, one-on-one conversations, and an anonymous way to reach us that stays open the whole time. We read your documents, your data, and your reviews. We talk with your community partners. We set up a private page just for your staff, so anyone can reach us directly without going through their work email.
Then we tell you the truth
If an angle is Slipping, we say Slipping, even when the funder reports look fine. Being anything less than honest with you wouldn't be worth your money.
We'll agree to that part up front, before we begin. The hard moment always comes later, when the angle that's struggling belongs to someone sitting in the room. It's much easier when everyone knew that was coming.
Then you get the picture, and the plan
A written report across all five angles, and a plan for what to do first. Not everything at once. Nobody can do everything at once.
Most assessments only look inward. They ask your staff, read your paperwork, and hand you a report about what your organization thinks of itself.
We go outside too.
We talk with your community partners. The people you serve. Your funders, about the relationship rather than the money. People who used to be part of your organization and moved on. And we look at who was never there at all, by comparing who you reach against who lives in the area you serve.
That last one matters. Everything else in an assessment can only tell you about the people already in the room.
$5,500. If you go on to work with us, the whole amount comes off your package, so it's never something you pay for twice.
That covers all five angles, up to eight conversations with people outside your organization, a written report, and a plan for what to do first.
Our pricing flexes with the size and revenue of your organization. Tell us where you are and we'll figure it out together.
From the outside looking in.
A fresh perspective on how your organization is seen by the people around it.
Think of it as a mystery shopper, for your organization.
Someone comes at your organization the way a brand new person would. Finds you the way they'd find you. Reaches out the way they'd reach out. Waits the way they'd wait. Then tells you honestly what that was like.
Not what you hope it feels like. What it actually feels like.
This is the one people are most nervous about, and the one they thank us for most. Nobody has ever told them what the first phone call is really like. Whether the website answers the question people actually arrive with. How long someone waits between reaching out and hearing back. What it feels like to walk in the door the first time.
Almost always, we come back with good news alongside the fixes. Someone on your team is doing something kind that nobody upstairs knows about.
What this one costs
Starting at $1,500 on its own, depending on the size of your organization and how many touchpoints we look at. Already included if you're doing a full Snapshot.
When a fresh perspective can help.
You know something needs to change and can't quite name it. This is the most common reason people call us, and it's a good reason.
You're new in the seat. New executive directors get handed a version of the story. This gets you the real one.
Your board or a funder asked for an assessment. We'll give you something more useful than a document that satisfies a requirement.
You're about to do something big. Growing, merging, restructuring, taking on a new site. Worth knowing where you stand before you move.
You're brand new. The Launch version runs forward instead of backward. Not where are you now, but what does fully working look like for this organization, and what will we have built together by the end.
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no cost. Tell us what's going on and we'll tell you honestly whether a Snapshot is the right first step, or whether something smaller would serve you better right now.