I raised $12M to launch two nonprofit newsrooms.
The first step? A great strategic plan.
Most strategic plans are operational plans in fancy clothes.
Operational plans describe what you'll do better than before. A true strategic plan describes what you'll do better than anyone else.
The first comes naturally to experienced operators. But true strategy requires leaders to dig deeper than what's comfortable. That's where I step in.
I don't allow leaders to settle for less.
A strong strategy feels both controversial and inevitable.
Finding the narrative that accomplishes both is hard, sometimes emotional work. We're going to dig past the obvious until we find the narrative that couldn't belong to anyone else.
For nonprofits who want a strategy they can truly call their own.
I deliver a structured but lively advisory experience to your core leadership — asking hard questions, pushing past the comfortable answers, until the real strategy surfaces.
Decisive
You leave able to make confident yeses and confident nos on every decision going forward.
Alive
Great strategy work is energizing. You will be reminded of why you started this work in the first place.
Authentic
The final product is authentic because it is authored by the team, not an outsider.
I was previously chief strategy officer at Civic News Company, where I led their strategic planning efforts, and later raised $12M to found Votebeat and Healthbeat, nonprofit news organizations focused on voter integrity and public health, respectively.
I have guided several nonprofits to create robust, funder-ready strategic plans, including LION Publishers and 70 Faces Media.
From a single-topic newsroom to a $12M portfolio.
I was brought in to Chalkbeat — a digital news organization focused on local education coverage in multiple states — to help grow its offerings to more geographies. After working closely with the founder and CEO on the strategic plan, we determined that the outsize revenue potential lay in fundraising for new topics (not just education). We raised $12M to found Votebeat and Healthbeat, and created a new parent company — Civic News Company — in early 2023 to run this new portfolio of brands in the local civic news space.
Four months to a clear, powerful story.
When I worked with LION Publishers, they already had the right pieces in place for a strong strategic plan — they needed to organize and elevate their narrative. Over a swift four-month period, we turned their impact into a clear, powerful story. This included some hard decisions, like sunsetting a program that was well-funded by a restricted grant but ultimately a distraction from the core mission. By the end, they had a clear roadmap that simplified operations and gave the team the focus they needed to move faster and with conviction.
“Working with Alison gave me the thought partnership I needed to clearly articulate a vision for our work over the next five years. She asked smart questions and consistently helped push my initial answers to smarter places.”
