Consulting

A good strategy helps to align aspirations, enable hard decisions and prioritise finite resources – all so that your organisation, sector or community can have greater impact.

We work collaboratively with clients to: 

• Define strategic direction: Clarify and test vision, purpose, and values to ensure alignment with organisational goals and long-term impact.
• Facilitate leadership alignment: Lead strategy workshops with Boards and executive teams to drive decision-making and cohesive planning.
• Drive growth and scaling: Develop business cases and plans to support sustainable scaling and expansion.
• Assess and plan for opportunities: Identify and evaluate strategic opportunities while developing multi-year strategies for long-term success.

See examples of our work with Macquarie Group Foundation and South32 and the Anindilyakwa Land Council.

See our paper and supplementary research on creating Impact at scale.

Articles include:

• Why is strategy valuable: leaders have their say
• Strategy: to consult, inform or simply wing it?

We help organisations to be effective and efficient at delivering on their plans, and explore new paths to revenue and impact.

• Realign your operating model: We can support you to improve the functioning of your organisation by fine-tuning your processes, governance, people, technology and services. 
• Diversify revenue: We help organisations to identify new opportunities for growth and increase financial sustainability including exploring social enterprises.
• Program design: We support the research, design, and planning of new innovative programs.

See an example of our work with the Brave Foundation.

We are passionate about the potential of amplifying impact through partnerships. We support our clients from navigating options through to uniting organisations to maximise collective outcomes.

• Strategy: We help Boards and executives navigate why, when, and in what form a partnership may be the right strategy to pursue.
• Partner search: We bring deep social sector understanding to help identify and select suitable partners.
• Terms: We act as independent facilitators to surface challenging choices and mediate principles and non-negotiables that will form the basis for the partnership.
• Business case and implementation: We help shape the strategic rationale, assess customer, financial, staff, and stakeholder impacts, and set clients up for execution with operating model design, leadership selection, legal coordination, and stakeholder engagement.

See an example of our work with the BaptistCare, Baptcare and Baptist Care (SA) merger.

Articles include:

• How to go about a non-profit merger – Social Ventures.
• Mergers and acquisitions: four things for boards to keep top of mind – Social Ventures.

We help our clients evaluate programs and use their data to learn, adapt, and improve outcomes. We bring together technical expertise and rigour, collaboration, and a focus on making commitment to data-driven decision-making.

• Theory of change and program logic: We help clients to define and clearly communicate their purpose and how they try to create positive change.
• Program and policy evaluation: We conduct independent evaluations of programs and policies that give leaders confidence to make important decisions about the future.
• Outcomes management: We help our clients build the capacity, resources and systems to measure their own outcomes and use this to continually learn, adapt and improve outcomes.
• Data collection and visualisation: We develop practical tools and resources to collect, analyse, visualise and use data on performance and outcomes. 

See an example of our work with WEstjustice: Monitoring

We work closely with all levels of government to support more effective public policy, towards an Australia where all people and communities thrive. Our approach is grounded in data and evidence of what works, while ensuring support from key stakeholders and decision makers.

• Policy development, design and analysis. We work with government agencies to develop evidence based policies through research, stakeholder engagement, and rigorous analysis, ensuring practical and sustainable solutions. 
• Policy review and evaluation. We evaluate and review existing policies to identify strengths, uncover gaps, and inform targeted improvements that drive accountability and better outcomes. 
• Program or service design, mapping and co-design. We collaborate with stakeholders to design programs and services, using participatory design techniques and evidence of what works, to create impactful, user-centred services, that ensure operational efficiency.  
• Research papers. We conduct research by combining data analysis, stakeholder engagement, and literature reviews, to develop clear, evidence-based papers that support informed public sector decision-making. 

See an example of our work with the ACT Government, Community Services Directorate, 2023-24.

We help organisations understand, measure, value and communicate their social impact using the Social Value principles and Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology. We guide clients in making data-driven decisions that enhance their impact and create meaningful change.

• Training: We support individuals and organisations to understand, measure, value and communicate their impact using the Social Value principles, through accredited public and tailored training courses. Find out more here.
• Strategy and planning: We support our clients to embed the Social Value principles into decision-making to maximise impact.
• Stakeholder engagement: We ensure that those affected by programs or investments have a voice in defining what is measured and valued. 
• Analysis and reporting: We have pioneered the application of a robust social value and SROI methodology to analyse the impact of investments, for different sectors.

See an example of our work with Australian Unity’s Community and Social Value (CSV) framework, calculations and training.

We help organisations to leverage both their own data and external datasets to better understand problems and design solutions.

• Unmet demand – We work with organisations to understand where there are people that aren’t getting the services they need  
• Scenario and forecast modelling – We can help you be better prepared for the future by designing and developing models that take into your unique circumstances and factors.​ 
• Metrics and dashboards – We can help you put data at the centre of your decision making, through the development of key metrics, data visualisation, and bespoke dashboards. 

See an example of our work with VACCHO: forecasting workforce demand.