Services

Often the channel for investment is through a collaborative body. Collaboratives leverage collective knowledge, save time through avoided pitfalls, and tap resources that may not be available to individuals. From startup design to impact capture, Sutherland & Associates teaches the how-to of strategy and data gathering, so that clients can tell their story of influence and needs. Groups large and small are benefiting from Sutherland & Associate’s decade-long experience in networking, grant making, and impact capture.

Services offered to Foundations and Collaboratives include:

• Articulating end goals at formation so collaboration structures and data collection methods support greatest influence from the beginning
• Developing programs that ensure daily workload is leading collaborative staff to organizational milestones
• Designing and facilitating member meetings around strategic decision points while preserving the democratic nature of a collaborative and maintaining a safe space in which to air differing opinions
• Modifying and streamlining existing systems to eliminate redundancy so that staff and members can work smartly
• Managing members in collaborative efforts by being a highly trained and responsive accountability hub for technical assistance, grant agreements, timely execution of outputs, and extraction of outcomes

No two foundations or collaboratives are the same in temperament and construction. Sutherland & Associates starts where the organization is by listening to background, intentions, and challenges. They help to articulate short and long-term visions, and build tailored, measurable work plans designed to achieve common goals.

 

 

Sutherland & Associates is comfortable working within lengthy timelines, asking hard questions, and clarifying the landscapes of funding, partnerships, and language barriers. Staff cultivates tenacious research skills and capacity to frame guiding questions, create and assess data sets, and analyze for trends and answers. 

Services offered to Nonprofits and Governments include:

Sutherland & Associates understands that change is complex, and not limited to lab, governance structure, or demographic. A holistic problem-solving approach is used, so that outputs can be implemented within existing work-flow structures. The firm seeks what works best, figures out how to do it, and frees ideas from jargon so they can be understood and used by stakeholders.

 

 

Cross-sector practitioners and private partners can be overlooked as a significant driver of climate solutions. Often there is a lack of access or insight into the fields that they need influence to effectively do their jobs. 

Sutherland & Associates works across sectors so that it is clear that everyone, especially those working to bridge gaps in communities, are part of the problem solving process around climate issues. 

Services offered to Practitioners and Private Partners include:

• Investor-owned utilities can be paired with municipal utilities to jointly address water and energy resources in an integrated way
• The private market can be tapped to influence customer behavior changes that governments are unable to motivate
• Governments can be taught to see themselves as technical support for and conveners of community-based organizations, sharing power and responsibility in ways that advance climate progress locally

Sutherland & Associates provides frank assessments, suggests process flows, and advises on ways to work together to unlock resources that may exist in silos to achieve collective goals.