Social Sector Projects
- All
- Strategic and Operational Planning
- Financial Sustainability Planning
- Implementation Support
- Startup Planning
Financial Sustainability Planning
The Gates Foundation chose Evan James Consulting to analyze the total cost of operating a quality career pathway model and to develop financial sustainability plans for a cohort of seven pathways intermediaries. EJC developed a customized cost framework for the project along with a total cost analysis and individualized cost model for each intermediary. EJC also provided technical assistance for the intermediaries to help them develop financial sustainability plans to diversify funding and grow public and earned revenues to advance and scale their work. Several intermediaries secured large new funding sources in line with their plan. This work has informed the Gates Foundation and its community of practice in their work to develop, validate and codify exemplar models of career pathways intermediaries.
Implementation Support
The Urban League of Louisiana partnered with Evan James to launch the SEE CHANGE Collective (the Collective), a long-term collective impact initiative focused on closing the racial wealth gap for Blacks, Hispanics, and Latinos in the Greater New Orleans region. EJC is providing strategic advice and serving as the project management team, aligning the Collective’s multiple stakeholder groups – including the Urban League of Louisiana, the backbone organization; a Steering Committee of local practitioners; and the National Advisory Committee made up of thought leaders and change makers – and guiding them through the collective impact process. EJC is mapping out the SEE CHANGE Collective’s shared agenda; developing and maintaining a multi-phased project plan; conducting research and producing a landscape scan to inform stakeholders; managing a planning process to develop the Collective’s Theory of Change; and crafting a comprehensive engagement plan to ensure the lived experiences of community members is considered in all of the Collective’s work.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Evan James Consulting reviewed the organizational structure and budget and developed a centralized office that would manage innovation efforts throughout the organization. In addition, EJC evaluated 15 opportunities to improve value, political risk, and ease of implementation. EJC also recommended a more streamlined organizational structure and three opportunities that were collectively worth over $750K in annual value.
Strategic and Operational Planning
The Greater New Orleans Foundation selected Evan James Consulting to investigate how schools and community partners could equitably address the highest priority needs facing New Orleans students. Evan James conducted a structural analysis by examining the racial inequities inherited from the historical national and local education policy context, identifying the present conditions resulting from that context, prioritizing a set of needs to close the gap between the current conditions and the desired experience for students, recommending a set of interventions, and estimating the resources, including but not limited to partnerships, required to implement the interventions. EJC highlighted four urgent areas of need and three critical enablers and recommended how schools and community partners could increase resources, coordination, partnership, and investments to improve student support and performance.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Evan James Consulting was chosen to redesign the organizational structure and improve talent management practices to establish a strong foundation for establishing and growing a local education agency. EJC recommended a new organizational chart, job descriptions, employee evaluations, and a budget based on three-year revenue projections under traditional, socially distanced, remote, and hybrid scenarios.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Evan James Consulting conducted an Operations, Management Systems, and Organizational Review of the Harris County, TX Universal Services Department (USD). EJC identified USD’s strengths and weaknesses as well as organizational, policy, and operational opportunities for improvement in the department. To aid USD’s efforts, EJC recommended creating a more formal, centralized IT service delivery model, reinforcing IT Service Management processes and tools, and integrating more equitable data practices. In addition to these measures, EJC also estimated the resources necessary to implement each of the recommendations.
Strategic and Operational Planning
EJC was selected by Teachers Like Me to assist in codifying it’s program model and to develop a strategic plan that would facilitate growth and sustainability. EJC examined and refined TLM’s Theory of Change, clarified the program’s key performance indicators, determined the short and long-term capacity needs required to achieve objectives, and further identified the resources and partnerships that would bolster TLM’s program delivery and scale. EJC prepared an external-facing strategic plan TLM could use to articulate its value proposition to potential stakeholders and provided TLM a financial model incorporating recommendations and forecasting program revenues and costs, including the staff and other resources required for operation and growth for 5-years.
Startup Planning
Evan James Consulting helped the founding Executive Director of the New Orleans Youth Alliance – an intermediary that works to cultivate a system of high-quality, well-resourced youth development organizations that center youth leadership and racial equity in their work with young people – articulate, validate, and refine the organization’s strategy and business model. The resulting business plan and financial model will guide the organization’s course for the next 3-5 years.
Strategic and Operational Planning
EJC partnered with NOCCA to produce a detailed transportation study to support the school’s effort to increase student enrollment by providing equitable transportation services to deserving students across the region. To determine which students should gain access to NOCCA’s program, EJC examined NOCCA’s enrollment criteria, census tract data for the region, and historical trends of sending schools. EJC conducted a feasibility study of alternative transportation options NOCCA could deploy to reach a greater number of students across the region. As a result, EJC provided NOCCA with a final transportation plan and 5-year financial model that proposed NOCCA adopt transportation to increase access to sixteen sending schools reaching nearly 250 new students annually.
Implementation Support
Evan James Consulting reimplemented the human resources module of NOLA Public Schools’ ERP application, Munis. EJC defined functional requirements, conducted a gap analysis, redesigned processes (including performance management), re-configured the software, performed testing, trained NOLA Public Schools’ staff, and successfully launched the solution. EJC also gathered requirements, evaluated applications, and developed a project plan for NOLA Public Schools to implement a document management system.
Startup Planning
New Pathways New Orleans (NPNO), an intermediary that builds cross-sector solutions for New Orleans youth with significant needs, engaged EJC to analyze the local ecosystem of youth-serving organizations, research “collective impact” organizations across the country, refine the organization’s theory of change, identify the resources (staff, technology, etc.) necessary to achieve the vision, build a multi-year budget and determine key success metrics. NPNO has built a staff that is executing a three-year implementation plan focused on specific outcomes for special education, mental and behavioral health, and juvenile justice.
Startup Planning
Three entrepreneurial organizations in The Idea Village’s ENERGYx cohort needed expert guidance to create five-year cash flow projections. The three businesses were in varying phases of the startup process and had diverse revenue streams and expenses. EJC created a flexible financial model to meet the needs of the individual companies with only three one-on-one working sessions. The initial working sessions helped the entrepreneurs examine the financial aspect of their business model – focusing on the amount and timing of revenue and expenses. At the last session, EJC trained the entrepreneurs to use the financial model as a tool for future projections as their companies mature.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Evan James Consulting was chosen by Pontchartrain Conservancy, an environmental science and conservation organization, to develop its 2022-2025 strategic plan. EJC performed a thorough financial analysis, interviewed key stakeholders ranging from board members and staff to funders, conducted a peer analysis, and designed and administered a survey on organizational culture to Pontchartrain Conservancy staff. Using findings from this research, EJC developed recommendations for organizational restructuring, strategic focus refinement, and fund development. To support the organization in operationalizing the plan, EJC provided an updated theory of change and organizational chart, an implementation plan and accompanying budget, and a dashboard for tracking key progress measures.
Strategic and Operational Planning
Evan James Consulting was engaged by PolicyLink on behalf of a philanthropic collaboration that aims to boost economic mobility and improve the life trajectories of people impacted by the criminal justice system to research five U.S. cities’ readiness to advance alternative public safety programs and to reduce reliance and spending on police via grassroots movement building, political action, community-based programs, and other strategies. EJC conducted focus groups with community organizers and advocates, interviewed public officials and representatives of community-based organizations, analyzed police department and overall city budgets, and researched the infrastructure, demands, and support for community-based alternatives to police. EJC provided a report of findings, analysis and recommendations based on that research to inform the philanthropic investment strategy.
Financial Sustainability Planning
Evan James Consulting conducted research into best practices and methods nonprofits have used to achieve and sustain scale to inform CareerWise Colorado’s execution of a multi-year plan for its youth apprenticeship model. The research conducted explored the use of public funds to sustain operations and scale programming; innovative financial tools, earned revenue strategies and resources to support short and long-term growth; and funding sources to address persistent social, racial and educational inequities to ensure low-to-moderate income youth of color succeed. From this research, EJC developed recommendations for the organization to sustain and scale its program by building a strong national network of affiliates, partnering with leading national service providers that provide wraparound services to increase capacity and close gaps in equity, and delivering expert services and resources through a social enterprise that leverages CareerWise’s proprietary technology and expertise.