Services Overview

WHAT WE DO

Whom We Support

We typically partner with organizations and enterprises at inflection points -- visioning new directions, launching initiatives, seeking sustainable funding, or scaling up -- all in pursuit of breakthrough impact. We're not shy about jumping into the deep end with initiatives seeking $100M+, if not $1B+, of impact potential.

Philanthropy

Are you exploring new investment opportunities? Do you seek to improve the impact of your portfolio? We offer strategic planning, research, analytics, performance management, and facilitation services to help you get to the next level.

Nonprofits

Are you looking to bolster or grow your programs? Are you seeking to use data in new ways for impact? Are you hoping to secure greater investment and community engagement? We've been there and can help you realize your ambitions.

Collective Impact

Are you working to define, communicate, and measure your distinctive value-add? Are you having challenges aligning actors across sectors towards shared actions? We've worked though similar situations and can help you chart paths forward.

Our Services

We tailor our supports to each organization's unique needs. Among many services we offer, two are frequently requested: (1) strategy and investment planning and (2) analytical "rocket fuel".

Strategy and Investment Planning

We facilitate collaborative processes with clients to prioritize, design, develop, and deploy initiatives; create strategic frameworks and logic models; craft implementable business plans; and write compelling communications to secure the resources and investments needed.

We can help you:

Articulate a compelling strategic direction with measurable, motivating, and achievable goals backed by a focused set of priorities and clarity on your distinctive role.
Assess your capabilities and resources to achieve those goals based on organizational diagnostics, benchmarking, impact modeling, and financial / resource analysis.
Map out a concrete approach to grow key capabilities, secure needed revenues and resources, and measure, learn, and improve.
Develop strategic communications including multi-year business plans, Board decks, and funding and investment proposals.

Analytical "Rocket Fuel"

Comfortable both as a stand-alone and as a supplement to existing projects, we capture and integrate insights swiftly from interviews, research, and analysis; develop actionable strategic tools and frameworks; and lay out operational solutions for organizations to become more data-driven.

We can help you:

Analyze and prioritize paths to impact, getting to "what you'd need to believe" and "what you need to do" backed by data, logical reasoning, and stakeholder input.
Develop actionable fact bases on opportunities you're exploring by triangulating evidence, data analysis, and stakeholder perspectives.
Design and help integrate data-guided ways of working into your organizational operations, culture, and decision-making.
Create visualizations and communications to illuminate critical insights, guide strategic choices, and influence external stakeholders.

In all our engagements, we pull from our consensus-based, equity-grounded Results Based Facilitation training; breadth of knowledge in education, economic mobility, and place-based work; and diverse experiences with philanthropy, national networks, and regional nonprofits.

Select Client Results

Since our Fall 2018 inception, we have helped our clients secure over $400M in new investments and strategically deploy over $1.4B in resources. We are proud to have helped organizations create and strengthen cultures that center data & evidence, their community constituents, and their internal team in working purposefully together for impact.

Assisted Place Matters portfolio in its deploying over $300M in first-of-their-kind regional scaling investments. Supports included shaping $100M+ education & economic mobility investment plans with multiple regions, crafting new frameworks and measures for portfolio impact, and surveying grantees to guide shifts in Place Matters strategy, operations, and external relations.

Assisted fledging ProsperOK Oklahoma statewide investment collaborative in raising and deploying $20M in philanthropy. Supports included managing, facilitating, and developing comprehensive multi-year plan; providing ongoing, versatile early implementation guidance to lead coordinating organizations; and initiating measurement & reporting systems.

Assisted Dallas anti-child poverty backbone deeply from startup through growth, helping secure over $50M in investment. Supports included researching and writing issues briefings and in-depth landscaping reports, advising CEO on strategy & operations, and guiding development of $100M+ Dallas "Opportunity 2040" investment plan, the first Blue Meridian Partners approved.

Assisted national college advising nonprofit in strengthening its analytical foundation for decision-making during a pivotal growth phase. Supports included landscaping the college access & success ecosystem to define Matriculate's distinctive positioning and frame growth options, conducting new ROI analysis to quantify value addition, and evaluating new revenue sources.

Assisted start-up and expansion of George Kaiser Family Foundation-launched Birth Through Eight Strategy for Tulsa, helping raise and deploy nearly $600M. Supports included intensively and collaboratively managing development of BEST's strategic underpinnings (logic models, impact analysis, data tools), creating and socializing financials, and presenting to lead investors.

Assisted Open Society Foundations, via New America, on "sprint" to identify and prioritize solutions for improving economic mobility and reducing racial inequality across the U.S. Supports included project-managing the research process, a senior consultant, and expert panelist engagement; conducting, synthesizing, and writing briefings and reports across 20 issue areas; and developing and applying new "persona"-based household financial profiles to vet solutions.

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