Services

LOOPS & SOCKETS*

My services are borne out of challenges I have observed across my career in all kinds of organizations – museums, youth development orgs, policy-focused orgs, you name it.

Leadership transitions are hard, no matter how carefully they are planned and executed.
It is often challenging to uncover the gems hiding in the detritus of bad processes and minimal infrastructure support.
Strategic planning is typically seen as a visioning exercise rather than an implementation exercise.
Performance management is more often used as a threat than as a tool for learning and growth.

These challenges are especially amplified for organizations with budgets under $5M. Smaller organizations are the bread and butter of the social impact landscape – 97% of all nonprofit organizations in 2021 had revenues less than $5M. But, more often than not, these organizations do not have consistent resources (time, money, or expertise) to invest in critical organizational infrastructure and cannot establish resources to support organizational resiliency. Enter Jigsaw Impact Strategies.

Photo credit: Harrison Truong

Contact Me

Interim Services

Leadership transitions can be hard, but they also can be exciting opportunities for organizational transformation. I am able to serve in a variety of interim leadership roles including executive director, marketing/development director, and chief of staff. Serving in any of these roles allows me to keep programs and processes running while also putting fresh eyes on organizational operations to find high-leverage opportunities for improvement to prepare the organization for new leadership.

Strategic Planning

Good strategy doesn’t matter if you can’t deliver on it. Say “strategic planning” and many people roll their eyes imagining a long, drawn out process that results in a nicely designed document that sits buried in a computer folder until it’s time to do another strategic plan. That’s not strategic planning. Strategic planning is about the plan and the execution. I work with organizations to align your capacity, culture, strategy, resources, and implementation to create the conditions for high-impact, sustainable results. You are the expert about and hold the passions for your work so together we will identify collaborative and mutually beneficial business opportunities that enable you to deliver on your mission.

Operational Systems & Practices

Operational systems and practices are sort of like the plumbing in a house – not necessarily fun and exciting, but absolutely necessary. And if you don’t do them right or they get out of date, you end up with a mess. This is especially important for small to medium-sized organizations and start-ups, who may not have had the time or expertise to develop these systems and practices. Through this area of practice, I work with you to assess whether you are maintaining organizational documentation like by-laws, accounting procedures, and employee manuals. If key documentation is missing or in need of an update, we’ll work together to determine an appropriate process and plan for regular maintenance. Further, we can explore pain points across your organization operations to create practical systems and tracking tools.

Performance Management

Central to mission-oriented work is impact – impact for your clients, staff, organizational partners, and community. Often impact measurement is a tool used only to demonstrate value to donors, funders, or investors. That’s important, but impact measurement can be so much more. It can be a tool for team-building, organizational learning, and, more importantly, delivering on your mission. Performance management covers a wide variety of metrics – program impact, employee engagement, financial management, and organizational operations. And, it’s not just about the numbers. Narrative commentary, stories, and observations are invaluable tools to getting a three-dimensional understanding of your organization’s impact and opportunities for continuous improvement. Together, we’ll develop a performance management strategy and implementation plan that works for your organization and mission.