Expert Guidance at Every Stage of the Journey
builds your capacity to both win today and succeed independently tomorrow.
Expert Guidance at Every Stage of the Journey
From organizational strategy to proposal excellence, my tailored support builds your capacity to both win today and succeed independently tomorrow.
Organizational Strategy Consulting
A clear organizational strategy forms the foundation for sustainable growth and funding success. I help you define your market, align resources with opportunities, communicate your differentiators, and build relationships that transform strategic vision into winning results.
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Market Identification
It is essential for organizations to have a clear understanding of their market, so they can identify which programs to pursue. I will work with you to articulate what you think you are good at, what you are passionate about, and what people will pay you to do. The intersection of those is your market!
Growth Strategies
Based on your market, I will help you to identify and network with potential funders, set achievable growth targets, and codify your strategy into a clear plan which can be used to both align your internal team and attract external funding.
Partner Engagement
Organizations that win engage partners, consortium members, and other stakeholders in ways that create lasting relationships of consequence, not convenience. I will help you create strategies to engage with partners so that when it becomes time to build a team, you are the first organization they call.
Donor Engagement
There is nothing more important to winning business than understanding your client. I will help you learn to speak to clients to better understand what drives their decision making – even when they are bound by regulations that make it seem impossible to learn what they really desire.
Thought Leadership and Marketing
Efforts to tell the world who you are and why you matter must be aligned to your growth goals and integrated throughout your public communications, marketing efforts, thought leadership, and industry engagement activities. I will help you achieve this alignment through co-creation of marketing strategies and review of materials.
Growth Team Development
Knowing you need a growth team is easy, but knowing which skills it must have, how large it must be, how it should be structured, or how to keep them motivated, develop their skills, and guide their efforts is not! I lean on decades of experience structuring and leading teams in a variety of environments to help you structure, recruit, and resource your growth function.
Strategy and Operations Alignment
Knowing how much money you want to bring in is only half the battle. I will support you to ensure your pipeline of potential opportunities aligns with your financial targets, and that you are staffed correctly to be able to respond to that appropriate number of opportunities.
Organizational Strategy Consulting
A clear organizational strategy forms the foundation for sustainable growth and funding success. I help you define your market, align resources with opportunities, communicate your differentiators, and build relationships that transform strategic vision into winning results.
Read More
Market Identification
It is essential for organizations to have a clear understanding of their market, so they can identify which programs to pursue. I will work with you to articulate what you think you are good at, what you are passionate about, and what people will pay you to do. The intersection of those is your market!
Growth Strategies
Based on your market, I will help you to identify and network with potential funders, set achievable growth targets, and codify your strategy into a clear plan which can be used to both align your internal team and attract external funding.
Partner Engagement
Organizations that win engage partners, consortium members, and other stakeholders in ways that create lasting relationships of consequence, not convenience. I will help you create strategies to engage with partners so that when it becomes time to build a team, you are the first organization they call.
Donor Engagement
There is nothing more important to winning business than understanding your client. I will help you learn to speak to clients to better understand what drives their decision making – even when they are bound by regulations that make it seem impossible to learn what they really desire.
Thought Leadership and Marketing
Efforts to tell the world who you are and why you matter must be aligned to your growth goals and integrated throughout your public communications, marketing efforts, thought leadership, and industry engagement activities. I will help you achieve this alignment through co-creation of marketing strategies and review of materials.
Growth Team Development
Knowing you need a growth team is easy, but knowing which skills it must have, how large it must be, how it should be structured, or how to keep them motivated, develop their skills, and guide their efforts is not! I lean on decades of experience structuring and leading teams in a variety of environments to help you structure, recruit, and resource your growth function.
Strategy and Operations Alignment
Knowing how much money you want to bring in is only half the battle. I will support you to ensure your pipeline of potential opportunities aligns with your financial targets, and that you are staffed correctly to be able to respond to that appropriate number of opportunities.
Proposal Systems Development
Effective proposal systems are essential for consistently winning funding while preventing team burnout. I evaluate your current processes, identify areas for improvement, and help you create systems that increase your win rate while making proposal development easier, more efficient, and (yes!) more fun.
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Systems and Capacity Assessment
Whether you need help refining a single part of your process, want an expert to look under the hood at the entire machine, or wish to assess your team's capacity and determine areas for future growth, I can help. My proven assessment tool measures hundreds of elements essential for winning bids, and I use it to make clear and actionable recommendations that allow you to dramatically increase your success rate.
Proposal Quality Audit
Sometimes learning about good proposal practices is easiest when looking at concrete examples from your organization’s own recent history. I will review recent proposal submissions and create a comprehensive report identifying their strengths and weaknesses, outlining potential areas for proposal process improvement, and suggesting a plan to get there.
Proposal Systems Development
Effective proposal systems are essential for consistently winning funding while preventing team burnout. I evaluate your current processes, identify areas for improvement, and help you create systems that increase your win rate while making proposal development easier, more efficient, and (yes!) more fun.
Read More
Systems and Capacity Assessment
Whether you need help refining a single part of your process, want an expert to look under the hood at the entire machine, or wish to assess your team's capacity and determine areas for future growth, I can help. My proven assessment tool measures hundreds of elements essential for winning bids, and I use it to make clear and actionable recommendations that allow you to dramatically increase your success rate.
Proposal Quality Audit
Sometimes learning about good proposal practices is easiest when looking at concrete examples from your organization’s own recent history. I will review recent proposal submissions and create a comprehensive report identifying their strengths and weaknesses, outlining potential areas for proposal process improvement, and suggesting a plan to get there.
Active Proposal Support
For critical opportunities, bringing in outside resources with fresh ideas and perspectives can make all the difference. I provide targeted assistance at key junctures, ensuring your proposals are responsive to requirements, tell a cohesive story that resonates with funders, and stand out from competitors.
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Outline Responsiveness Reviews
Writing a proposal on the faulty foundation of an unresponsive outline dooms it to failure from the start. Every outline is the intersection of science (ensuring adherence to the requirements) and art (finding the right place for all the other great things you want to say). I can review or help you create your outline to ensure you are both integrating a solicitation’s requirements and making space for other key elements which are not requested, but essential for winning, such as win themes, guiding principles, and evidence.
Proposal Reviews
I provide comprehensive, insightful reviews at each stage of the proposal process - from late capture using my proprietary readiness capstone review approach to live proposal outline and “color” reviews (i.e., a midpoint technical and cost volume review). Having reviewed many hundreds of high stakes proposals, I understand that the key to a good review is marrying the hard skills of identifying proposal weaknesses with the soft skills of feedback delivery, and pairing these lenses with specific, practical suggestions that give teams the guidance they need to refine their drafts and win.
Win Themes Facilitation
The best proposals tell stories, and win themes are those strategic messages that bind other information together and let you tell a cohesive story that answers the simple question “Why Us?” Using my often-imitated-but-never-duplicated Competitive Analysis to Win Theme Approach, I will take you through a multi-session process that identifies the intersection of what your client really wants, your perceived strengths and weaknesses, and those of your competitors. I will then help you identify win themes that highlight your differentiators and create a plan to integrate them throughout your proposal.
Technical Strategy Facilitation
Most proposals fail to adequately connect a demonstrated understanding of challenges in a way that is aligned to their specific strategy and proposed approach. My tested Strategic Path process helps technical experts pull back from their in-the-weeds-focus to see the whole forest. I will help you not only identify the challenges, but their root causes, and then I will work with you to align those to the specific strategy and approach you will use to deliver change. Proven effective at winning billions of dollars in programs since 2022 alone, the Strategic Path delivers.
After Action and Learning Facilitation
A common instinct following the submission of a proposal is to repress the experience from one’s mind and try to move on. Don’t! People and proposal systems only learn from thorough analysis of what went right and wrong and after the delivery of feedback. I offer an outsider’s perspective to help you draw lessons from proposal efforts by facilitating after action reviews in ways that are careful not to draw expansive conclusions from small sample sizes.
Active Proposal Support
For critical opportunities, bringing in outside resources with fresh ideas and perspectives can make all the difference. I provide targeted assistance at key junctures, ensuring your proposals are responsive to requirements, tell a cohesive story that resonates with funders, and stand out from competitors.
Read More
Outline Responsiveness Reviews
Writing a proposal on the faulty foundation of an unresponsive outline dooms it to failure from the start. Every outline is the intersection of science (ensuring adherence to the requirements) and art (finding the right place for all the other great things you want to say). I can review or help you create your outline to ensure you are both integrating a solicitation’s requirements and making space for other key elements which are not requested, but essential for winning, such as win themes, guiding principles, and evidence.
Proposal Reviews
I provide comprehensive, insightful reviews at each stage of the proposal process - from late capture using my proprietary readiness capstone review approach to live proposal outline and “color” reviews (i.e., a midpoint technical and cost volume review). Having reviewed many hundreds of high stakes proposals, I understand that the key to a good review is marrying the hard skills of identifying proposal weaknesses with the soft skills of feedback delivery, and pairing these lenses with specific, practical suggestions that give teams the guidance they need to refine their drafts and win.
Win Themes Facilitation
The best proposals tell stories, and win themes are those strategic messages that bind other information together and let you tell a cohesive story that answers the simple question “Why Us?” Using my often-imitated-but-never-duplicated Competitive Analysis to Win Theme Approach, I will take you through a multi-session process that identifies the intersection of what your client really wants, your perceived strengths and weaknesses, and those of your competitors. I will then help you identify win themes that highlight your differentiators and create a plan to integrate them throughout your proposal.
Technical Strategy Facilitation
Most proposals fail to adequately connect a demonstrated understanding of challenges in a way that is aligned to their specific strategy and proposed approach. My tested Strategic Path process helps technical experts pull back from their in-the-weeds-focus to see the whole forest. I will help you not only identify the challenges, but their root causes, and then I will work with you to align those to the specific strategy and approach you will use to deliver change. Proven effective at winning billions of dollars in programs since 2022 alone, the Strategic Path delivers.
After Action and Learning Facilitation
A common instinct following the submission of a proposal is to repress the experience from one’s mind and try to move on. Don’t! People and proposal systems only learn from thorough analysis of what went right and wrong and after the delivery of feedback. I offer an outsider’s perspective to help you draw lessons from proposal efforts by facilitating after action reviews in ways that are careful not to draw expansive conclusions from small sample sizes.
Individual & Team Coaching
Success for requires specialized skills at every level. I provide targeted coaching to professionals throughout your organization—from executives making strategic decisions to proposal writers crafting compelling content—helping them develop capabilities and make good decisions that drive growth.
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Executives
As a former executive, I have been in your shoes. Guiding organizational growth takes a steady hand, and sometimes it feels like there are few people executives can turn to for advice. I partner with you through regular calls to help you work through challenges, offering support and advice, and helping you see things in new ways that can unlock hidden solutions to intractable problems.
Senior Growth Leaders
Business development and fundraising leaders carry enormous loads, and there is always something happening which could use an outsider’s perspective to support good decision making. With more than a decade of acting as a growth director in a variety of environments I have faced all of the challenges currently on your mind, from bid decisions and staffing and resource challenges to in-the-weeds issues on specific proposals. Through regular or ad hoc sessions, I will help you think through solutions that allow you to solve that problem and move on to the next one!
Proposal Managers
Captaining the ship as a capture or live proposal manager requires countless decisions, and each needs to be made carefully – at the right time, in the right way, and while maintaining alignment with your proposal team and organizational leadership. I work with new and experienced proposal managers alike to help you structure a high-level strategy for your proposal process and break that plan into sequenced steps – so you know what to do next, when to do it, and how. I am then on call to help you with each step, from talking through specific problems to facilitating strategy sessions. I will help you know what to do next, and how to do it!
Proposal and Grant Writers
Writing a technical proposal can be a daunting task. Quite often, excellent technical implementers are asked to also become terrific proposal writers overnight, even though the skillsets can overlap little. I work with brilliant technical minds and help translate your ideas into prose that gets funded. From the earliest moments of capture through submission, I will help you understand what to do next, and how to do it, and I will review your work along the way to keep you on track and accountable. Great technical minds can become great proposal writers, with the right support. With hundreds of writers supported over the decades, I can help unlock your brilliance!
Oral Presentation Teams
The skills required to nail an oral presentation often differ greatly from those needed to implement programs, but technical implementers are often asked to carry the burden of winning this competition round. I help teams identify and clarify their big messages, create talking points that both allow presenters to be thorough and also present naturally, sequence their messages appropriately, and practice so the delivery is smooth and polished. I also help teams ensure their slide deck serves their presentation themes and aligns to their talking points. With more than a dozen winning presentations supported, I know how to get you ready for this crucial stage.
Emerging Leaders
Established senior leaders and teams requiring immediate support often find their way to coaching, but mid-level staff who show strong promise in business development can benefit greatly from advice that helps to prepare them for the next level of leadership. Sessions focus on gaining the right hard and soft skills required for their next promotion to expand their ability to drive growth at their organization. With decades having developed and mentored junior and mid-level staff into eventual directors and vice presidents, I know how to guide staff to help prepare them for future roles as industry leaders.
Customized Training
Continuous learning is essential to win funding in today’s competitive landscape. My comprehensive training curriculum covers every aspect of growth and proposal development—from opportunity identification to beyond submission—sharing the practical knowledge and actionable strategies needed to succeed.