Services
One practice, three lanes.
Most engagements draw on at least two. I can carry the work from proposal to model to the system that keeps it current.
i.
Funding
Money in, managed well, and the math underneath it. Strategy and materials for organizations that raise; operational discipline for the ones that grant.
- Fundraising strategy, funder landscapes & grant writing
- Grants management, award to close-out
- Grantmaking operations, intake to payment
- Feasibility, capital analysis & board decision support
ii.
Systems
The plumbing that determines whether strategy reaches people. Built no-code where possible, documented always, handed off properly.
- Workflow design & documentation
- Grants systems: selection, workflow design & implementation management
- Web tools that update from a spreadsheet
- Dashboards, directories & trackers
iii.
Story
Operating records turned into claims that are accurate, sourced, and persuasive, in that order.
- Narrative strategy & content architecture
- Public proof pages & websites
- Decks, briefs & board materials
- Data storytelling
Four shapes the work usually takes
Funder landscape, prioritized opportunities, an evidence review, narrative strategy, and a submission plan you can run.
A review of the grant lifecycle, receiving or making, then clearer workflows, ownership, templates, reporting, and the right-sized system.
Scenario model, visible assumptions, trade-offs, and the board-ready materials that carry a consequential decision into the room.
Operating records and staff knowledge turned into a funder brief, a public proof page, a dashboard, or a decision narrative your team can keep current.
Each runs as a defined project, and the timings are typical rather than fixed. Plenty of good work arrives without a name on it: a decision nobody owns, a system mid-migration, a proposal due in three weeks. That is what special projects means on my masthead, and it is often the most interesting call I take. When a job needs an owner rather than an adviser, I also work fractionally over a season.
How I work
For nonprofits & foundations
The situations I get called into.
The flagship studies above are the Nevada Clean Energy Fund and the City of Worcester, but the practice was built inside California philanthropy, on both sides of the grant. I'm based in San Francisco and work with teams anywhere. If one of these sounds like your Tuesday, we should talk.
If you raise
"The LOI is due, and the story is scattered."
We pull the evidence out of your drives and your staff's memory, then ship a narrative a program officer can understand and carry forward. I have written these for a living and read them for a living. I know how they actually land.
"We won the grant. Now someone has to run it."
Post-award is where good fundraising quietly comes apart: restricted funds tracked in one person's head, report deadlines found late, subrecipients chased by email. We set up the calendar, the tracker, and the reporting rhythm, so compliance stops being a scramble every quarter.
"The funder asked for outcomes. Our data lives in nine spreadsheets."
We build the record once, then the public proof: a page where every claim links to its source, refreshed from a spreadsheet your team already knows how to use. No developer on call, no CMS to learn.
"There's a capital decision on the table and nobody has modeled it."
A building, a lease, a program at a new scale. We model the scenarios, stress the assumptions, and put the trade-offs where your board can see them. The same discipline a city gets, sized for you.
If you grant
"Our grants process grew by accretion. Every cycle hurts more."
After running the grantmaking practice at a spend-down foundation, I know where process debt hides: intake, docketing, review, payments, reporting, and the spreadsheet nobody admits is load-bearing. We redesign the cycle and right-size the technology around it: Salesforce, Fluxx, or whatever the cycle already runs on. The usual door in is a Grant Operations Reset: a few weeks through the cycle, intake to payment, ending in findings and a rebuilt workflow. And when a cycle needs hands rather than advice, I can run it.
"We're a spend-down. Every system we build has an end date."
Sunsetting is an operations problem disguised as a mission statement. I ran grantmaking operations inside a foundation on a clock: processes sized to their lifespan, records built for the archive from day one, close-out as a first-class function.
When appropriate, I can help explore whether capacity-building or technical-assistance support may be available for work like this, and shape the ask so a funder can say yes to it.
Before you write
Fair questions, quick answers.
How do engagements start?
With a few lines by email and a short call. You leave that call with a view you can use, whether or not we end up working together. From there, work usually takes the shape of one of the four projects above, or fractional support over a season.
What does it cost?
Scope and fee depend on the problem. After an initial conversation, I'll outline the work, timing, and a clear project fee before either of us commits.
Will this create work for my team?
Less than you'd fear. Outside help has to be worth the coordination it costs, so I start from the materials you already have, take responsibility for a clearly bounded piece, and keep drafts, sources, and assumptions visible as I go.
Who owns what you build?
You do. Files, models, documentation, credentials: everything transfers.
Are you taking new work?
I keep the practice deliberately small. If the timing or the fit is wrong, I'll say so and tell you when to come back.