Groups of people that require close collaboration to function effectively often get stuck. This can be due to various factors, including personality conflicts, incompatible management styles, poor communication, an unclear decision-making process, and conflicting goals. Using various techniques and tools, I work with groups to identify where they are stuck, the reasons for that, and strategies to help them advance their goals in a collaborative and harmonious way.

Organizational Development also looks like:

Leadership and team development: I support the Executive Director and other leaders in your organization to maximize your impact and build/strengthen effective teams, including communication skills, conflict resolution, decision-making, and strategic plan implementation.

Board development & strategy for engagement: I educate Board members about their role so they put their time and energy where it is most needed and most strategic.

Refinement of organizational structure: I clarify leadership roles and responsibilities, including lines of accountability and supervision.

Targeted support for clarifying strategic decisions: When thinking about how to best approach an internal or external issue, such as goals, funding, staffing, program expansion, and succession planning, organizations often benefit from the perspective of someone who is not directly involved in the work. Those not as close to an issue often feel more freedom to ask challenging questions, assess available resources that may have been overlooked and identify opportunities that are often more difficult for those close to the issue to see.

Organizations often find themselves at a point in their development where they need to take a step back, re-evaluate their goals and strategic direction and map out a course for achieving newly-articulated goals. I guide clients through the process of developing and implementing a strategic plan.

Example of Strategic Plan for The Family Room

Example of Strategic Plan for Lamoille Restorative Center

I support leaders in skill development, help create self-awareness, drive transformational change, and provide critical challenge and support. I create a collaborative relationship with the leaders that I am coaching, and I customize our sessions to fit your goals. I act as a sounding board and support with problem-solving. I also help leaders understand how to put their skills to work in the most effective ways. Receiving coaching as a non-profit leader can often be a more affordable way to elevate the effectiveness of your organization.

I work collaboratively with clients to set goals and build the agenda for the meeting or retreat. In my role as facilitator, I gently guide participants from discussion to decision-making. My facilitation style blends humor and flexibility with a focused, systematic approach to ensuring concrete and specific outcomes. My goal of using meetings to build community is reflected in my use of participatory decision-making approaches such as the consensus model. Meeting facilitation was an integral part of my role (for over a decade) as Coordinator of Vermont’s statewide early childhood coalition and in my former capacity as chair of a joint school board.

Shared goals and interests provide an excellent starting point for potential powerful partnerships and coalitions. Their success, however, depends on the details of working together and identifying individual strengths. My experiences and skills with building consensus and facilitating productive, respectful discussions on often thorny issues can help partnerships and coalitions at different points in their growth. As chair of a school board that oversaw the merger of two schools, I drew heavily on these skills.

I bring a combination of formal training, hands-on experience and innate skills when I help organizations think through the development of an issue campaign in a systematic and logical way. Many organizations know what they want to achieve but do not always know how to get from point A to point B. This was a critical component of my work as Coordinator of Vermont’s statewide early childhood coalition and in a similar role in Connecticut.

Years of analyzing policy proposals, state and federal legislation and regulations have honed my skills in this area, especially in the field of early childhood and elementary education. Policy briefs, which I create, are an excellent tool to help organizations and individuals make decisions about policy recommendations or policy positions.

My qualitative research skills, combined with a clear writing style and incisive analysis, result in evaluations that have practical use. When working for the federal government and then the Harvard Family Research Project, I produced a 30-60 page report every three months for six years on a wide range of topics related to family support, child development, early learning, and elementary education. Several years ago, I completed an evaluation of a national project on language acquisition among multilingual children.

My excellent organizational and time management skills serve clients well when I’m managing projects that require strict adherence to timelines; involve multiple individuals/organizations; and benefit from having a champion to ensure that work products are completed on time. I work well in a team setting and adapt easily to diverse work styles.

Foundations, legislative bodies, non-profit organizations and state agencies need to write reports at some point but do not always have the in-house capacity to do so. I am skilled at synthesizing large amounts of information and presenting it in a readable format. One such project entailed conducting twenty-two interviews, synthesizing the information collected and developing recommendations for the client to consider.