Consulting

Consulting can bolster your capacity when you can’t take on one more thing, add outside expertise to your projects, facilitate strategic conversations, and bring your puzzle pieces together into mission-driven plans.

Consulting May Support You with Any Of These Challenges  

  • Big visions, but not enough time

    You have lots of ideas - and maybe even documents full of brainstorms and beginnings - but you need someone who has dedicated time to synthesize your ideas and help grow the visions into tomorrow’s plans.

  • No capacity to move toward your goals

    Your busy volunteer committee or board of directors has incredible expertise, but needs someone to play a specific role to advance a time-bound project that will help you achieve your goals.

  • Unclear strategic plan

    Your team is busy focusing on what you’re uniquely good at, which makes setting aside time for strategic planning challenging. A set of extra hands for project managing and writing a strategic plan would help the team chart a course forward toward the North Star goals for the years ahead. 

  • Need support with facilitation

    Your group is well-positioned to achieve your goals, but you know you could benefit from someone who is not on your team facilitating strategic conversations and supporting your community engagement strategies.

  • Lack of systems

    You are bubbling with workshop ideas and you are ready to recruit participants, but you need help setting up systems that will streamline outreach, communications, and logistics that lead to a positive experience for your attendees.

As your consultant, I am committed to: 

  • Supporting real-time problem solving 

  • Co-developing systems to support strong teams

  • Seeing your strengths

  • Encouraging you to build from what you already know

  • Helping you solve the challenges you’re facing

If you long to receive support as you work to transform the conditions in your community, I would love to be your consultant. 

I am particularly skilled at supporting: 

  • Organizers

  • Nonprofit team leaders

  • Community leaders and committee chairs

  • Municipalities

  • Social change practitioners

My consulting services include:

  • Meeting, strategy sessions, and retreat facilitation

  • Training, meeting, and retreat program and logistic support

  • Planning and creating strategy for organizing and campaign arcs

  • Leadership development for staff and/or volunteers

  • Power building assessments

  • Coalition development

  • Community engagement oversight

  • “While serving on a board with Mary Alice, I saw her borderline magical leadership skills in action on numerous occasions. Mary Alice has a knack for getting teams unstuck and on the same page. This involves both her own abilities to facilitate - even on tough issues - while drawing expertly on many different group dynamic modalities. Add to that an exceptional ability to listen and include perspectives that might not surface easily, and pull all that into an overall strategic view of things. This adds up to one of the most talented organizational leaders I have ever worked with. A mentality of improvement and self-reflection is part of what I appreciate most in Mary Alice as well.”

    –Jon Reed, Co-Founder diginomica

  • “Mary Alice encouraged us to think big and work together to envision the future of the organization. As president of the Northampton Open Media Board, Mary Alice was organized, efficient and insightful. She knew the value of team-building. We always spent a few well-spent minutes at the beginning of the meeting checking in and sharing, before proceeding to business. She organized several board retreats during her tenure, which built camaraderie and allowed us time to dig deeper into our tasks. "Connection" is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Mary Alice's leadership.”

    –Melissa, Filmmaker/Animator

  • "I found ease in this retreat in part because of Mary Alice's role holding logistics for our group."

    –Ethan Kerr, Co-Founder, Breaking the Mold

  • “Thank you for such clear and competent communication before the training!! Organizers shared *a lot* of information, with a high level of critical detail. Your excellent use of bold fonts, bulleted lists, and functional hyperlinks made it possible for me to navigate successfully. I *really* relied on your emails and couldn’t have followed it all without you.”

    –Sierra Zweig, MA, LMHC

Rates & Payments

Contract rates are based on a sliding scale between $200-$350 per hour when I:

Create plans and other documents for you—strategic plans, communications plans, campaign plans, memos, or recommendations.

  • Provide project management for special projects such as your website or an onboarding and welcome journey for workshop attendees.

  • Oversee community engagement or take another active role in a key deliverable.

When I provide on-site support for a single or half-day event or facilitate a multi-day event, I charge a flat fee. The flat fee includes preparation and debrief.

  • $# to $# for for half-day

  • $# to $# for full-day

  • I charge $# to $# for multi-day retreats.

If any of these rates would prevent us from working together, please reach out. We may be able to make other arrangements.

Connect with Me

Let’s meet for a free one-hour discovery session.

  1. Click the button below to fill out an intake form to guide our conversation.

  2. Choose a time to talk. 

On our call, we’ll explore your struggles and help you get clear on your next moves, which may include an invitation to work with me.

I look forward to talking with you soon!