Advisory-led. Diagnostic first. Built to last.
Every institution I work with arrives believing it has one problem. It usually has three, and they are connected. My first job is to see the full picture clearly before prescribing anything.
I work directly with CEOs, executive directors, and senior leadership teams. Not with a junior associate relaying findings up a chain. Not through a survey and a slide deck delivered at the end. The engagement is a working relationship between peers, built around the problems your institution is actually facing.
How an Engagement Works
A typical engagement runs three to four months. The structure follows the same pattern regardless of where the work begins.
First, I build a baseline. That means reviewing the documents your institution has produced, the financials, the strategic plans, the evaluation data if it exists, and asking the questions those documents cannot answer. I do not arrive with conclusions. I arrive with a diagnostic frame and the experience to know what to look for.
Second, I develop the analysis. This is where the baseline becomes a working model: revenue centers mapped against cost and mission alignment, staff capacity assessed against what the institution is asking of it, evaluation data interrogated for what it actually shows rather than what it is assumed to show. The analysis is grounded in evidence. Where the evidence is incomplete, I say so.
Third, I build the tools. Frameworks, roadmaps, scenario models, prioritization scoring sheets, evaluation instruments: the deliverables from my engagements are designed to be used independently after I am gone. The distinction between a consulting deliverable and a capacity-building one is that the latter outlasts the engagement itself.
Fourth, I work with you to present findings and recommendations to the board or senior leadership in terms they can act on. Financial complexity translated into decisions. Interpretive challenges translated into institutional commitments. Staff development needs translated into professional architecture.
What I Am Not
I am not an implementer. I do not manage your staff, run your programs, or execute the plans we develop together. My role is to help you see clearly, decide well, and build the internal capacity to carry the work forward. If an engagement calls for implementation support beyond that scope, I will tell you so directly and help you find the right resource.
I do not take every project I am offered. I work with a small number of institutions at a time, and I am selective about fit. The engagements that work best are ones where senior leadership is genuinely ready to examine hard questions and act on what the analysis shows.
Who This Work Is For
History museums, historic sites, historic houses, and historical societies operating in the range of $2 million to $15 million in annual budget, with leadership teams that are stable enough to do consequential planning and honest enough to act on what they find. Board chairs and executive directors who have stopped believing the problem is a marketing problem. Institutions that have invested in growth and are ready to invest in resilience.
If that sounds like your institution, I would like to hear about it.