Pinch
Hitting
Our Approach
We know the story... You have a staff member on leave, you need a particular expertise to round out an existing team, or you are a young organization that needs some support while growing staff infrastructure. That's when we're ready to step up to the plate and be your pinch hitter. Our broad knowledge of organizational structures and departmental roles, and our ability to engage experts in a wide variety of topics, allow us to easily step in to mentor staff, support your needs and be a true team player.
In Action
The Challenge: Goal Setting
Effective goal setting is critical to an organization’s ability to keep staff motivated and align all areas of the organization towards a shared vision. It is also a skill that takes time for young managers to develop.
A fast-paced growing nonprofit with multiple divisions and programs recognized the need for outside assistance and contracted Grunewald Consulting for two yearly cycles to manage this important process of goal setting. We provided the support needed to develop staff skills. Taking the whole picture into account, we developed a project plan and timeline that ensured the process was in sync with strategic planning cycles.
We coached staff on crafting effective departmental goals, objectives and timelines, and led productive visioning and planning sessions to ensure all goals were aligned with the organization's mission values and strategic direction.
The Challenge: Program Design
After receiving positive response from a funder about creating innovative programming at libraries across the county, an organization was awarded a planning grant to further develop the concept and write a comprehensive proposal. With the funding, they chose to hire Grunewald Consulting to manage the project and support program design.
Working with a team of internal and external stakeholders, we created and managed a project plan, helped write various materials related to the project, and organized a two-day summit with library programming leaders to ensure the proposed program provided value and aligned with structures and constraints of libraries of all sizes. The work resulted in productive relationships with innovative libraries across the county, a well-designed program, and a strong proposal that ultimately resulted in funding for the organization to implement the initiative.
The Challenge: Grants Coordination
A large disaster recovery organization was implementing a program that provided 50 million dollars in grants to hundreds of organizations to support vital recovery services in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. One mandate was to ensure that smaller community-based organizations were able to produce compelling grants including detailed project plans, budgets and supporting materials. In addition to having limited grant writing experience, these organizations were in the midst of providing services and their resources were stretched to capacity.
Ensuring that these vital recovery organizations were able to submit compelling proposals required a great deal of support from the granting organization. In addition, there was enormous pressure to review, award and start distributing funds in a very short period of time. In order to meet these demands, the organization hired additional staff for several months to work with potential grantees and help management identify the final list of recipients.
Because of our knowledge of recovery environments and nonprofit organizations as well as proven organizational abilities, Grunewald Consulting was hired to lead this effort of working with organizations and finalizing applications for nearly 200 applicants. This entailed months of intensive work, managing 4-5 temporary workers, coordinating 2-3 planning meetings a day, liaising with management, creating organizational tools and working directly with larger high-profile potential grantees. Ultimately, deadlines were met and the organization was grateful for our ability to jump in quickly to manage the fast-paced, challenging process.