Sarah Lee Consulting works with nonprofit organizations, grantmakers, and public agencies to help them strengthen their work — in partnership with their constituents and communities — by clearly articulating their goals, designing their work for impact, and rigorously assessing what they do.
To contribute to systemic and equitable social change, nonprofits, grantmakers, and public agencies need to be both strategic and inclusive in the ways they plan, learn, and make decisions about their work.
By strategic, I mean that organizations should be deliberate in naming the change that they want to see in the world, intentional in designing their work to advance that change, and eager to understand how and why their work is or isn’t achieving change.
By inclusive, I mean that strategic thinking should happen in ways that invite the expertise and experience of the people most involved in, and affected by, an organization’s work. Further, such thinking should be attuned to the systemic and structural realities — especially those that hinder or support equity — that characterize its operating context.
Services
To help organizations become more strategic and inclusive, I draw on 15+ years of evaluation and facilitation experience. My approach is also informed by ideas like systems thinking, human-centered design processes, and the equitable evaluation movement. But I won’t try to fit your needs and challenges into any one framework or cookie-cutter process. My goal is to use the mix of tools and techniques necessary to facilitate your strategic and evaluative thinking in an inclusive and outward-looking way so you can make better decisions about your work in your unique context.
planning & organizational development
needs assessment
strategic planning
program/initiative design
organizational capacity assessment
organizational coaching & capacity building
organizational learning & knowledge management
research/knowledge synthesis
knowledge sharing
learning systems & practices
capacity building
Evaluation planning & implementation
outcomes articulation
logic model/theory of change development
measurement framework development
developmental evaluation
process evaluation
outcomes assessment
portfolio evaluation
community & partner engagement
community input processes
identifying shared goals & building consensus
participatory action research
Am I a good fit for you?
Nonprofits, grantmakers, and public entities of all kinds can benefit from my process-oriented approach. But I’m particularly passionate about collaborating with those that are working to address issues of equity in the context of place. Are you a funder that’s investing in the civic, social, and economic fabric of a particular region? A housing organization that’s trying to better understand your impact on your constituents? Or an arts & culture organization that wants to better connect with and engage its local communities? Let’s talk.
Interested in learning more? Get in touch here.
“Working with Sarah is always a pleasure and we greatly value her thought partnership on evaluation design. She facilitated an open, collaborative process for us to define our intended impact in partnership with grantees. Sarah made it possible for us to truly learn with our grantees, using evaluation as a tool for organizational and field-wide change—not merely for accountability.”