Organizational Development & Strategic Alignment

Strategic Planning and Visioning

When an organization is aligned, everything feels better. Boards and executive teams lead from one shared vision, staff are engaged and well resourced, goals are achieved, and missions are served with maximum impact. Raise the Bar offers solutions that help your organization get and stay on track, to meet the promise of your mission and make the world a better place.

Knowing where you want to go is the first step in getting there. Our Strategic Planning and Visioning services help support your organization in  forming a shared vision that everyone can coalesce around, and a roadmap to grow your organization’s mission and programs.

Our Strategic Planning services align your stakeholders and strategic priorities behind your common vision, align programs with mission, and place value on the process as well as the final product. We engage and motivate internal and external stakeholders in meaningful participation, providing targeted opportunities for involvement at each stage of your process.

If your organization is facing an executive transition, it’s the perfect time for Visioning, to ensure that the Board is aligned behind a common vision for the future, to attract a new executive who can lead in alignment with your vision.

Our processes may include SWOT, lifecycles, and market analyses; stakeholder and community surveys; and focus groups and town halls. Most  importantly, we work to ensure that your final Strategic Plan feels like a dynamic road map that can and should change with the changes in  market conditions. You’ll come away with an Executive Summary and a concise plan that serves as a project management tool that your team can use to stay on track for success.

Because organizations have different needs, we offer:

Visioning Sessions, to gain agreement and alignment behind broad reaching goals.

Abridged Strategic Planning Processes, to help engage smaller cohorts develop shorter-term, 12-to 18-month plans.

Comprehensive Strategic Plans, to offer deeper support to groups looking to engage multiple stakeholders, conduct comprehensive analyses, and develop 24- to 48-month Strategic Plans.

Succession Planning, to help organizations create next steps for filling key vacancies, whether planned or unplanned.

Facilitation, as a neutral third-party to assist you in holding productive and efficient meetings and retreats.

Organizational, Lifecycle & Leadership Assessments

Understanding where your organization excels is just as important as understanding where your organization may fall short. Our comprehensive organizational assessments focus on all aspects of the health of your organization. We take the time to analyze your organizational culture and leadership, programs, administrative systems, revenue models, resource deployment and governance. We utilize Nonprofit Lifecycles, SWOT, and other leading industry frameworks to evaluate your opportunities. And we elicit feedback using in-person and anonymous methods to gain a 360-perspective that informs study results.

After thorough analysis, we develop a formal report and present our findings to your executive leadership and Board with strategic recommendations. Some people say these reports help “Tell Truth to Power.” The final report provides your Board and Executive with the data you need to make the best possible leadership and resourcing decisions moving forward.

If your leadership thinks something doesn’t feel right in the organization but they’re not sure why, an organizational assessment is the perfect first step on the road to resolution, course correction, and growth.

Organizational Transition Support

Startup and Expansion

Starting a program or organization can be daunting. We work with you to assess current market conditions, identify growth strategies, assist with the administrative work of starting a new nonprofit or business venture, and help you design your services to maximize your chances of success.

Horizontal and vertical organizational growth can be particularly impactful, as long as there is a cohesive, long-term strategy to see it through. We help you build the plan to sustainability.

Mergers, Acquisitions and Exit Strategies

We work with your team to analyze the relevance of your programs and the community’s capacity to support them. Often, this work begins with an Organizational Assessment. We then offer recommendations for transition. We assist your organization to partner, merge, or exit programs and/or operations with grace and dignity, in ways that best serve your customers and the community. And we help shepherd your organization through processes of partnership or consolidation, if needed.

Strategic Consulting Solutions

Seeking guidance and assistance for a range of organizational support needs? Our team offers one-on-one or group consulting support based on industry best practices to help your organization stabilize, course correct and grow. Raise the Bar takes an individualized approach which allows our team to fully understand your organization’s unique landscape and challenges before we strategize a solution. Our strategic consulting solutions can be tailored to fit the specific needs and goals of your organization and are offered as bundled hours or on retainer.

Board Development

Through our Strategic Consulting Services, we offer Boards an opportunity to evaluate their work, position themselves for growth and build a circle of leadership to best move an organization forward. We work one-on-one with your Board leadership to assess your governance model, engage Board members, move Boards away from operational involvement where possible, and empower Boards to lead. We help dormant Boards kickstart recruitment and leadership, we help you build member engagement strategies, we help you better deploy your Board resources, and we guide and support you along the way until your team feels our support is no longer needed.

Evaluation

Our team offers research protocol and methodology design, evaluation tool development and full implementation services to help you assess the strengths, needs, successes and opportunities of your programs, services, and operations. We support small projects and large efforts alike, including projects currently funded by the National Science Foundation and the USDA.

Our clients have found our services to be of great value at an affordable price. We offer hourly rates for select services by project or retainer. View our rates here. 

Contact Us

(520) 982-5467

M - F • 9am - 6pm

Pacific Time

and by Appointment

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