Our Services
Optimal Solutions provides comprehensive services to help nonprofits and public agencies achieve their desired results. You bring your ideas, inspiration, and open minds to the table, and we’ll bring our experience, curated resources, and practical tools. Together, we’ll develop solutions that fit your team’s culture, needs, and goals.
Services
Strategy & Impact
Work through a collaborative planning process with us to clarify your vision for the future and determine how to ‘get from here to there.’ By the end, you’ll have shared agreements about goals, outcomes, and actions, so that everyone, at all levels of your organization, are working together to achieve sustainable results.
We specialize in:
Needs assessments
Strategic planning
Program or Initiative planning
Measuring and communicating impact
Results you can expect:
Ability to make long-term decisions with clarity and focus, AND respond to emerging issues with the confidence that you’re staying true to your organization’s mission, vision and priorities.
Compelling data-driven stories that you can tell about the critical issues your organization addresses and the results of your efforts.
Increased communication and collaboration among team members and partners.
Contact us to discuss your Strategy & Impact needs.
Training & Capacity Building
Learn new skills or continuously enhance existing skills. Tailored to individuals, teams, or entire organizations, our trainings blend theory, best practices, and real-world experience to ease the transition from “classroom” to workplace.
Our training topics include the following, and more:
Essential Facilitation Skills
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Skills for Working With Difficult People in Challenging Situations
Developing the Next Generation of Leaders
Using Data for Action
Custom training: You choose the topic, length and location, and we’ll develop the training that fits your needs and budget.
Results you can expect:
High performance teams that work together effectively to achieve common goals.
Improved processes and daily operations that run smoothly because everyone knows what is expected and has the skills needed to perform their jobs.
Next-generation leaders that have the knowledge, attitudes, and skillsets they need to be effective and impactful.
Contact us to discuss your Training & Capacity Building needs.
Facilitation
Our superpower is designing and leading inclusive, interactive, and results-oriented meetings, retreats, and events of all sizes—in-person, virtual, and hybrid. We use a variety of facilitation frameworks and methods, including human-centered design, liberating structures, systems practice, participatory decision-making, facilitative leadership, and more. Tell us the purpose and desired results for your event, and we’ll discuss whether you need:
An “extra pair of hands” to handle logistics (scheduling, facilities, registration, language interpretation, translation of materials)
Assistance with designing the agenda and supporting materials
A neutral facilitator, so that your participants can focus on brainstorming, networking, discussing, listening, and problem-solving
All of the above!
We specialize in:
Community engagement sessions
Planning sessions
Collaborative or coalition meetings
Board and staff retreats
Team meetings
Results you can expect:
Shared clarity and focus around the purpose and goals of the event, keeping participant attention centered on the important issues.
Increased engagement that is respectful and solution-oriented, allowing participants to reach agreement on how to move forward.
Participants leave with a plan of action and a commitment to take steps to improve individual or organizational performance.
Contact us to discuss your Facilitation needs.
Custom Solutions
Do you have a need that doesn’t fit neatly in any one category? Know that you want some type of assistance, but it’s hard to describe? Just want some guidance from a seasoned professional that you can take and run with?
If this sounds like you, let’s connect. We offer a free half-hour consultation to every prospective client. At the end of the consultation, you can decide whether you have enough information to move forward on your own, or would like to contract with us for further assistance.
We specialize in:
Organizational development
Individualized professional development
Targeted advice and resources
Business or strategy development
Results you can expect:
Effective leaders that get real-time assistance applying skills and strategies to their everyday work.
Engaged leaders that utilize their skills to make high-impact, effective decisions.
A culture of continuous learning, where everyone adopts a mindset of a “lifelong learner” and contributes to ongoing improvements.
Contact us to schedule your free 30-minute consultation.
Your organization has many strengths, and you know that it has the potential to achieve greater success.
We understand how difficult it is to be an effective leader in the midst of constant change and shrinking resources, especially in nonprofit and public sectors. We also know that even the most talented, committed professionals sometimes need an extra mind or pair of hands to accomplish their desired results.
We make the most impact with clients who are forward-thinking, action-oriented, open to new ideas and committed to building high-performance practices into their organizations. If this sounds like you, we’d love to work with you.
