Services
PROJECTS: Getting new initiatives up and running
New initiatives rarely fail for lack of a good idea. They stall because nobody has the bandwidth, the cross-sector relationships, or the operational nous to get things started and hold the discomfort of ambiguity and complexity while the long-term structure takes shape.
The challenge is particularly acute in tight timeframes, where a working model is needed quickly and longer-term requirements are still uncertain.
I come in at the beginning — when the idea is real but the path isn’t clear yet. I find the entry points and shape the first steps, working through the practical questions — who can hold the money, what the governance needs to be, what the minimum operational requirements — so that early moves create options rather than locking you into a structure that may not be right later. I bring the people whose backing you'll need along as we go. What you're left with is something that works, the relationships to sustain it, and a clear view of what it takes to keep it running.
FACILITATION: Building collaborative stakeholder groups
Stakeholder engagement that actually works needs more than a meeting. It requires understanding what each party needs, what they’re protecting, and where the genuine common ground is, even when the parties don’t yet know it exists.
I work across the full range of stakeholder configurations: government agencies, community organisations, philanthropic funders, private sector partners, regulators, and the people most affected by the decisions being made. The interfaces between these groups are often the most sensitive and the hardest to navigate: different languages, different incentives, different histories.
I shape the process to bridge those differences, hold the room through the hard conversations, and move people from arms-length or adversarial to genuinely collaborative relationships — with a shared understanding of what’s possible and a way forward they’ve helped build.
FOR TEAMS: Strategic planning and team building
Strategic planning fails when it produces documents instead of direction, or when the process engages leadership but leaves the rest of the team behind.
I design and facilitate strategic planning at all levels, in a way that surfaces what actually matters, builds shared ownership of the direction, and produces something people will genuinely use to guide their thinking, their work — and even how they work together.
Wherever you’re working, matching aspirations to reality is always a challenge — and in turbulent times, that challenge is sharper. I work with teams to find energy and motivation even in difficult environments, building the agency and accountability that turns a strategy into something people understand not just as a direction, but as their own role and contribution.
FUNDING STRATEGY: Making it easier for decision-makers to say yes
Most organisations know what they need funding for. The harder question is knowing how to position it so that decision-makers can get on board — what evidence counts, when the decision genuinely gets made, and what has to be true inside the system before a proposal can succeed.
I've spent much of my career on the other side of that table: designing and running an $11m government innovation fund across 48 agencies, nine years on a grants advisory committee allocating community capital, and building the budget bids, trusts and fee-for-service arrangements that move money through government. I know how those decisions look from the inside, and what makes decision-makers willing to engage.
I work with organisations to create the conditions for a yes: working out which opportunities are worth the effort, making what you do legible to the people holding the money, developing revenue streams that don’t rest on a single source, and building the relationships that mean your next approach isn't starting from scratch.