Find your team’s best idea. Build the systems to make it happen.
Most plans don't fail because the strategy was wrong. They fail because the systems were never built to execute it.
We work with healthcare leaders to close that gap — developing strategy that is grounded in your specific context, and building the operational systems that make it happen.
Recent Commentary
Have we reached the LGBTQ healthcare trust thermocline?
A generation of LGBTQ+ youth has learned they can’t trust mainstream medical institutions to care for them when things get tough. Where do we go from here?
We work with accomplished, mission-driven teams who have tried the conventional wisdom and found that it didn't get them all the way to where they wanted to be. Our clients are ready to do deep, impactful work, and to lay the groundwork for bold new initiatives to take root.
What We Do
Community health program design
Grants program strategy
Healthcare-community engagement
Team-centered strategic alignment
Speaking & training
Think tank convenings
Strategic planning
Research & evaluation program design
Recent Projects
Eight Weeks to Strategic Clarity
The client organization had been through significant changes over the past few years, and needed clarity on how their programs and financial plans fit together.
In eight weeks of meetings and a mini-retreat, we mapped the organization’s work and came up with a clear, coherent, one-page strategy brief to guide their decisions and work moving forward.
Grants Program Strategy
The client, a community hospital, needed a clear strategy and implementation plan to grow its grants program.
We assessed the hospital’s strengths alongside the overall landscape, and created a “playbook” to strategically guide every aspect of the grants program — from infrastructure needs to grants research criteria, to grantwriting and budget preparation best practices.
Community Health Think Tank
Community think tanks are a wonderful alternative to traditional focus groups — they allow ideas to emerge more organically and in collaboration, and can be a perfect way for hospitals or larger nonprofits to strengthen their collaborations with smaller community partners.
Our Core Tenets
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Strategic work is the practice of clearly defining a challenge, discerning our unique strengths, and matching our strengths to that challenge in the best way possible. This is vital for any person or team with a bold vision for their work in the world. So why does the word “strategy” make people think of strategic plans that no one reads and eating stale conference pastries while putting post-its on a wall? We’re out to change this. We all need and deserve access to spaces and frameworks for strategic thought that work in our unique contexts.
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A great idea is nothing without the systems that make it happen. Our approach to strategic work is grounded in your specific context, so that you end up with the systems that will turn your strategic clarity into results. We hate “pie in the sky” strategic plans that end up in a drawer. We don’t do that here. We build your strategy, then the systems that will power it.
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Strong collaborations — especially between “unlikely partners” — tend to yield some of the most innovative and impactful work. These collaborations take sustained investment. We build systems that make collaborative relationships flourish over the long haul.