Plan Big.
BUILD SIMPLE. SCALE FOR IMPACT.
You know what. We simplify how.
We equip social impact leaders with a simplified, scalable approach to social impact that works.
Whether you’re growing your board, operations, programs, and/or partnerships, we help scale what works, improve what doesn’t, and develop what you need in order to achieve the next level of social impact success.
It’s the same approach we’ve used to help the world’s most high profile - and highly scrutinized - nonprofits, social enterprises, and private sector social innovators design, build, and grow their boards, operations, programs, and partnerships with best practices derived from unprecedented experience at scale.
If you’re on a mission to “do more good better,” we can help.
Read more below about our industry-specific approaches.
Nonprofit Leadership & Capacity Building
We help growth-stage nonprofits design, build, and grow for scale by providing expert guidance, practical tools, and a global network of resources that are usually hard to find, inconsistently available, and typically (very) expensive.
There are four things every nonprofit has in common. Their success (or lack thereof) is entirely dependent on these four factors at every stage of their growth from startup to scale.
We call them the "Big 4” and almost every issue any nonprofit is facing at any time is found in them.
They are: Board, Operations, Programs, and Partnerships.
That’s it! Every success, failure, challenge, and opportunity falls somewhere in one (or more) of those categories. While that sounds simple (and it is!), there’s a lot “under the hood” of that simplicity that requires skillful expertise to implement well.
Unfortunately, growth-stage nonprofits regularly struggle with three common professional services challenges in their efforts to address the myriad issues that fall into the Big 4:
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Pro bono relationships don't provide nonprofits everything they need as quickly or for as long as they need it.
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Nonprofit budgets are rarely big enough to afford all of the professional services required to effectively scale.
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Professional services are often complicated, hard to distill, and delivered by different providers whose services aren't integrated or streamlined and sometimes leave nonprofit leaders and their teams confused and overwhelmed, not knowing what to do next.
We help growth-stage nonprofits design, build, grow, and evaluate high-performing, well-governed, and compliant organizations, programs, and partnerships using our “Beyond Simple” approach to the Big 4.
This approach is uniquely derived from unparalleled experience working with and across the internal teams and outside professional service providers, at scale, on nearly every type of innovative nonprofit board, operations infrastructure, program, and partnership of the past 20 years.
This experience is rare and takes years to acquire, is almost impossible for most nonprofits to ever develop on their own, and are hard (and prohibitively expensive) to cobble together from outside experts, much less distill and synthesize for easy everyday use.
Our team provides the value, efficiency, and integrated services of multiple experts with deep experience in developing the critical functions of impactful organizations, programs, and partnerships.
Our experience is now yours!
Some of the areas where our approach to the Big 4 helps clients most include the following:
That's where we come in.
High Performing Boards
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Board growth, development, and engagement
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Policy development and implementation, including codes of conduct, governance principles, and conflict of interest
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Engagement and meeting preparation
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Performance assessment and board self-evaluations
Policies That Work
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Comprehensive employee policy development and implementation support
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Employee engagement strategies
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Employee performance assessment protocols and practices
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Vetting and strategic intelligence policies, protocols, and practices
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Social investment policies
Organizational Growth
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Governance, compliance, legal, and operations assessment, planning, improvement, and support
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Executive leadership and HR support for organizations in a period of growth or transition
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Policy development for enterprise operations and management
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Program conceptualization, design, and execution to ensure new, specific, and measurable program results
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Fundraising and development strategy, guidance, and documentation that enhances and simplifies your success
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Internship program (paid and unpaid) assessment and compliance guidance
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Organizational formation, design, and development, including choice of entity considerations
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Nonprofit mergers, acquisitions, and spinoffs
Private Sector Social Impact
We help businesses meet rapidly increasing market demand for social impact and purpose. We develop practical approaches to businesses, programs, and partnerships that achieve measurable impact.
Strategy & Implementation
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Social Impact Strategy - Design, build, and deploy business-based social impact strategies including program conceptualization, planning, implementation, and evaluation.
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CSR to Social Impact Evolution - Taking CSR to the next level by evolving existing corporate social responsibility and core business strategies into broader social impact portfolios including business and impact integration, cross-sector partnerships, impact measurement, brand awareness, and social impact storytelling.
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Community & Employee Engagement - Advise on community engagement strategy including employee engagement programs, corporate giving, and community investment.
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Impact Investing & Social Finance - Guide successful impact investing and social finance strategies.
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Family Office Services - Advise high net worth individuals and family offices on strategic philanthropic engagement and giving strategies.
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Due Diligence for Impact Investing - Provide due diligence on and capacity building for prospective social enterprise partners/investments including impact assessment, review of business model, review of partners.
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New Venture Support - Counsel emerging businesses on the dynamics between social entrepreneurship and business realities.
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Partnership Development - Identify and create partnerships with strategic, implementation, and funding partners.
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Operational Tools - Provide practical tools and experienced guidance to facilitate scalable and sustainable implementation of social impact strategies, with a key focus on assessment.
Legal Industry Social Impact
We help law firms better speak and practice social impact. We help law schools teach it. And we help the profession measure it.
Social impact is ubiquitous. Public, private, and cross-sector innovators are increasingly engaging their attorneys to help develop initiatives designed to achieve social outcomes. From structuring impact investing and social finance transactions to counseling corporate clients in cross-sector social impact initiatives, the role of the lawyer in serving the social sector is evolving rapidly.
Simultaneously, law firms and lawyers are increasingly innovating in their own practices and doing good in ways that far exceed traditional pro bono alone. We have seen this work firsthand and have observed how the profession is moving with purpose toward greater social impact.
During a critical time of evolution and innovation within the legal industry, our team helps the most dynamic law firms refine their approach to social impact in a way that meets increasing demand from both clients and talent for this work - and makes a profit in the process.
Here's how we help lawyers maximize their role as the architects of social innovation.
Law Firms
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We help leading law firms grow their Social Impact & Innovation practices and strategies.
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We guide firms in maximizing their time, talent, and treasure for social impact while preserving each firm's unique culture and approach.
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Our work emphasizes opportunities for firms to grow fee-generating Social Impact practices that provide new ways for firms to do good while doing well - inclusive of, but far beyond, pro bono alone.
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We help firms deliver maximum value in their work with social impact clients.
Legal Education
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We teach and lecture on social impact law and the role of lawyers in social innovation - bringing together a mix of history, corporate law, nonprofit law, guest lecturers, and experiential learning.
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We help law schools establish "Social Impact & Innovation" practices in law school-based clinics - providing experiential learning opportunities for students, much needed services to community non-profits and social enterprises, and an enhanced role for law school clinics in the communities they serve.
Practical Tools
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Contract management, review, drafting, and negotiation
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Turn-key, customizable documents - including NDAs, MOUs, ICAs, joint venture agreements, contractor and vendor agreements
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Grant, funding, donor, and endowment agreements and support
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Licenses, releases, and related intellectual property protection considerations
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Event and production agreements
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Integrated medical security planning for international program teams and travel
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Internal capacity development to support effective ongoing use of provided tools
Impactful Programs
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Program conceptualization, design, documentation, and development
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Event ideation, program development, and execution
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Partnership engagement and relationship documentation for cross-sector and multi-partner initiatives
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Metrics-focused impact assessment, program evaluation, modification, and partnership engagement strategy guidance