Great ideas don't implement themselves. We work alongside policymakers, funders, and nonprofits to do the tough, unglamorous work needed to turn a decision, plan, or policy into real results. This can look like…

• Diagnosing implementation barriers,

• Developing practical implementation tools, or

• Rolling up our sleeves and helping your team execute.

For example: Working with a state agency to figure out why eligible families aren’t being connected to the services they need — uncovering and solving for the specific implementation barriers, like gaps in workflows, staff training, and data systems.

Funders and grantees pour enormous effort into designing grants and contracts. But, once the ink is dry, it's often hard to know whether progress is even being made. We build light-touch, high-frequency data tools that help teams learn and course-correct in real time — rather than waiting for a final evaluation to find out what went wrong.

For example: Building a referral tracker so that a funder could see near real-time data on how many families were signing up for services — and facilitating regular funder-grantee meetings to make sense of the data and adjust their approach as they went.

A well-designed grant or contract can be one of your most powerful implementation tools. Too often, it isn't. We help funders and grantees design agreements, reporting requirements, and management structures that drive real learning and results — not just compliance. This can look like:

• Advising on RFPs, contracts or grant agreements,

• Designing effective reporting requirements,

• Setting up contract management approaches.
  

For example: Helping a funder shape a portfolio of grants — designing individual investments, advising on reporting metrics, or building collaboration structures to drive results and share learnings across multiple grantees.

Stuck at the blank page? We help you take your early ideas and build them into a clear, well-structured strategy so your team knows where it's going and how to get there. This can look like:

• Helping your team build a shared mental map of the work,

• Structuring a complex work plan, or

• Drafting the scopes of work needed to move forward.

For example: Helping a nonprofit develop a strategic plan to grow their visibility, attract funding, and create structure for internal learning and decision-making.

Meaningful stakeholder engagement is hard to get right. Done poorly, you may end up with a wish list of ideas that are out of scope or impossible to act on. Done well, it surfaces the insights that make programs work. We help teams design and facilitate engagement processes that get you to the latter — without taking over your calendar.

For example: Helping a state agency hear directly from community providers about gaps in their service array — designing the engagement process to surface specific, actionable recommendations rather than a broad wish list, and using those insights to shape a new investment in culturally responsive family services.

Sometimes you just need another experienced person on the team who can hit the ground running. Whether you're understaffed for a big initiative, navigating a leadership gap, or up against a critical deadline, we step in — as an embedded team member, management backfill, or surge support — and get up to speed fast enough to move high-quality work forward quickly.

For example: Managing a team working on a high-profile, multi-partner initiative for a nonprofit research organization while the permanent manager was on parental leave.