Organizational Development & Strategic Alignment
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.

Strategic Planning and Visioning

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
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

Strategic Consulting Solutions

Board Development

Evaluation
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.