Consulting services

We believe we’re better together, which is why our founding partners envisioned consulting services that leverage a unique, team-based approach.

We’re collaborative problem-solvers who don’t believe in one-sized fits all solutions. Whether you’re an emerging nonprofit or have been serving Central Iowa for decades, we’re committed to meeting you where you’re at.

Nonprofit startups

With more than 23,000 active nonprofits in Iowa, it’s fair to say that there’s huge competition for community resources and support.

If you have an innovative idea or plan to serve a gap in community services, we provide a variety of start-up support activities, including a start-up checklist, business plan development, or even just a game plan to get you moving.

  • Deliverables vary, but typically include things like …

    • A nonprofit start-up checklist

    • A business plan

    • A preliminary strategic plan focused on startup activities

    • Every startup nonprofit is unique, so we’ll customize our approach to meet your needs

Strategic planning

We’re not strategy purists … we believe the best strategic plan is the one you’ll use. Unlike some other strategy consultants, we don’t start with a ‘product’ we’d like to sell you.

Instead, we’ll want to learn more about your experience with strategic planning, your decision makers, your likes and dislikes, and your organizational maturity and capacity.

From there, we’ll pull from a variety of approaches to tailor something for you. Our goal is to help you create a practical plan that helps you make decisions.

  • Deliverables vary, but typically include things like …

    • A strategic plan summary that tells the ‘story’ of what you’re planning to accomplish

    • A detailed view of strategic objectives or initiatives phased over time

    • A ‘by owner’ view that helps you know you have the capacity to get the work done

    • Other tools (such as a strategic planning calendar) to help make your team self-sufficient

  • Though each strategic planning proposal is unique, you can generally expect …

    • A kickoff meeting with the Executive Director and/or Board President

    • A survey or interviews to gather input from people who care about your work

    • An exercise to learn about what’s going well, what needs work, and what’s happening in the environment around you

    • Several sessions on topics such as fundraising, program delivery, back office administrative functions, and board effectiveness

    • A detailed strategic plan oriented around strategic themes

    • Helpful tips to keep you on track, even after we’ve wrapped up the project

    In some cases, we’ll recommend combining our Nonprofit Assessment to be included as a part of strategic planning.

Nonprofit assessments

Though they’re missionally focused, nonprofits are businesses and face all of the same pressures as any other business (and we’d argue a few more).

Our nonprofit assessment evaluates how you operate and delivers a prioritized report of best practices for nonprofits of your size. We’ll deep dive into board performance, fundraising practices, financial and risk management, staff and volunteer management, and other administrative functions.

    • Prioritized nonprofit action plan with recommendations for increasing your organization’s effectiveness

    • Before we begin, we’ll ask you to share your bylaws

    • We’ll meet with you for one full day or two half-day sessions. No advance preparation is needed.

    • After we create your nonprofit action plan, we’ll schedule time with you to review the plan and answer any questions you have.

Mergers & partnerships

Nonprofits are constantly finding ways to collaborate, ranging from referral relationships to shared service delivery to full merger. But partnership without a roadmap is likely to have some bumps along the way.

We’ll walk a working group through an exploratory process that tackles topics such as missional alignment, service model changes, fundraising and donor stewardship, people impacts, financial impact, and risk.

Each partnership exploration is customized to your needs, so no two projects are the same.

    • Leader ‘homework’ for each session

    • A presentation we’ll use to guide the working group through each topic

    • A variety of handouts or materials we develop to tell your story

    • A final detailed recommendation that reflects the exploratory working group’s suggested path forward

    • This recommendation will contain action items that you can use to create the start of an implementation plan

    • If the project includes the possibility of legal merger, we’ll also capture and inventory the documents your legal counsel will need to perform due diligence

    • In addition to our consulting services, groups considering formal partnership or merger will also need to select other experts conduct legal and financial due diligence

  • Though each partnership proposal is unique, you can generally expect …

    • A kickoff meeting with the Executive Director and/or Board President from each nonprofit

    • Extensive written homework to be completed by each organization’s leader prior to each session; this allows us to focus our meetings on strategic conversations rather than information-gathering

    • Weekly 2-hour partnership exploration discussions with the combined working group

    • A detailed recommendation reflecting the group’s consensus for how to proceed

    • Coaching for how to share the recommendation with your respective boards

Vision, mission, & values

Since the volatility of the political landscape shows no signs of abating, it’s never been more important to know who you are and what you believe. You need a firm foundation that allows you to make quick decisions in ways that align with your core beliefs.

We’ll help your team discover or refresh your vision, mission, and values. These foundational tools will help your team make decisions in ways that align with your core beliefs.

    • One-page summary of your new vision, mission, and values

    • Presentation that describes each of these concepts in greater depth

    • Presentation of how to apply these concepts to the work you do

    • Before we begin, we’ll ask you to share your current vision, mission, and values (if you’re refreshing them). A list of your programs or your most recent strategic plan are also helpful.

    • We’ll meet with you for four two-hour sessions. We’ll send a little thought work in advance, but no other preparation is required.

    • After your group approves the new language, we’ll share real-life examples of how to incorporate your new vision, mission, and values into everything you do.

Don’t see what you need?

Don’t let that stop you from reaching out.

In fact, one of our community partners said “You guys are our go-to for hairball projects.” We take that as a huge compliment.

Guess we aren’t scared by much. Tell us your story, and we’ll create a solution just for you. If it’s not in our sweet spot, we’ll point you to someone who can help.

Worried about the cost?

Let’s chat.

We can often find ways to approach projects to reduce a project’s price tag, so it’s worth a conversation. In fact, much of our work is with small and emerging nonprofits, so we’re used to being creative. We can also provide some tips for pursuing grants that may partially offset the cost of our work.

Get in touch

In our client’s words …

Canary Consulting Group stands out as a nonprofit consulting expert. Their process was thorough, diligent, strategic, and produced high-quality deliverables ahead of schedule.

They’re current on sector trends and their work benefits not just the projects they consult on, but also the organizations they work with.

Rachel Woodhouse
Executive Director