From dreaming to doing
All of our work begins by recognizing where the world is and where our clients are. Through that lens, we chart steps that support their efforts while ensuring care is being exercised for their workers and communities.
How we help
STRATEGY + EXECUTION
No matter your needs, ADC Consulting can support you with strategy, execution, or a mixture of both. Expand the services listed below to learn more about our areas of expertise.
Organizational
Management
After running a nonprofit and serving on several boards, Alejandra and her team are uniquely equipped to help you streamline your operations while supporting your workforce and aligning with your mission.
This service is perfect for small to midrange organizations, especially those in a season of transition or growth.
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We’ll come beside your team to identify goals for the future and how to get there. This could include developing business plans and succession plans, revamping the mission and vision, assessing the fundraising strategy, and evaluating programs.
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This is the 10,000 foot view where we’ll do an organizational audit that looks at every aspect of how your nonprofit functions. We’ll follow with recommendations around how you could make changes to more effectively meet your goals.
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We’ll help you uncover the answers to questions like: How is the board functioning? Is the legal structure of your organization helping or hindering? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your leadership team and what kind of support do they need to succeed?
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We’ll get a sense of how your organization is being run through things like a systems analysis, power mapping assessment, employee infrastructure review and more. With this information, we’ll make recommendations to enhance workplace culture, communication, and overall HR strategy.
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We’ll guide you through an internal analysis of your organization’s culture and develop values around DEI, accessibility, and justice.
From this work, we can develop equity primes to help your staff make decisions that consistently uphold your values.We also help implement systems of equity and justice internally and in the community, bringing in experts who specialize in areas like racial justice, anti-racism, and disability awareness.
Research
While research is embedded into almost everything we offer, it’s also one of our most sought after services on its own—whether for advisory support or end-to-end management.
Currently, ADC Consulting is leading the groundbreaking Dance Industry Census as well as a study on arts service organizations on behalf of The Mellon Foundation.
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This is as a comprehensive service where we lead the entire research process through ideation, study design, data collection, analysis, and presentation.
Examples of research types include: impact analysis, post-event surveys, community feedback, historical trends, industry surveys, and more. -
If you’re already clear on your study’s idea and research methodology, ADC consulting can act as a contributor or project manager to make the study actually happen.
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If you need research support from a strategic perspective, we can provide feedback on existing studies, serve on advisory committees, and provide guidance on whatever part of the process you’re in with your research.
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If you have data that’s already been collected, ADC Consulting can analyze it and identify patterns, drafting a memo of recommendations and action items based on the findings.
Project Management
& Programming
With extensive experience in stage and production management, the ADC Consulting team is adept at seamlessly coordinating and managing all the moving pieces of fixed term projects.
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All project management services are applicable only to projects with a clear start and finish. Based on your needs, provide comprehensive project management services or work in collaboration with your team.
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We’ll help you develop a new program from start to finish: identifying the goal of the program, writing the description, deciding on intended beneficiaries, creating schedules, workflows and timelines, structuring meetings, and drafting materials needed to see that project through.
We’ll also build templates and tools for long-term program implementation that you can use beyond our engagement together.
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We’ve successfully executed dozens of events, from small gatherings to those with 15,000+ attendees.
With a focus on conferences, workshops, panels, and industry events, our team can develop and curate content, devise ticketing and sales strategies, and manage digital or in-person event production with the support of your technical vendors.
Our goal is for your event to run smoothly, to provide a high-value attendee experience, and to do it all within budget.
Grantmaking
We have deep expertise creating successful grant programs that serve both individual artists and entities. Past grants supported artistic creation, crisis response, venue acquisition, and specific artist demographics.
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We provide strategic support for foundations and nonprofits at a macro level, evaluating the purpose and necessity of grant programs within their larger mission.
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We work collaboratively with your internal team to develop the idea for the program, along with the description, guidelines, and application process. We’ll also help you determine who receives funding, with expertise in factoring DEI into those decisions. If required, we can also put together communication and support strategies for program beneficiaries.
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The impact assessment involves an audit of program impact, including beneficiaries, execution, systems, and equity in the grant application process.
Advocacy &
Cultural Policy
Our advocacy and cultural policy work is targeted towards organizations or groups seeking to address community issues by organizing people to take collective action. We help define the issue, lay out an action plan, and offer a clearer understanding of the landscape through access to insights from policy experts across the nation.
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We help groups define their community issues and help develop a clear strategy for how to address them. That includes identifying stakeholders, understanding power dynamics, and researching relevant topics. Often, we’ll help create mission or vision statements for community involvement and creating action plans, such as scripting for phone banking and presentations.
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When building campaigns, we develop a larger narrative and identify all the pieces that will support it. While this work may require the participation of collaborators like designers, creative directors or copywriters, ADC Consulting will ensure that all of the pieces are working in tandem and will help you decide how to respond as things evolve.
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We help you break down exactly what it will take to get a specific piece of legislation passed and what you can do to help make it happen. We’ll building an action plan with you, helping you get clear, and providing feedback along the way as you implement it.
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When you work with ADC Consulting, you benefit from their robust network of policy experts who are doing this work across the country. This allows you to get bird's eye view, understanding where your advocacy efforts sit within larger conversations and deep thinking about advocacy.
Facilitation
& Speaking
Alejandra is a skilled facilitator, speaker, and educator who can elevate and maximize the conversation in any room. Her areas of expertise include: arts & cultural policy, research, philanthropy, fundraising, team building, entrepreneurship, DEI & justice.
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Whether you need help with panel discussions, conversations, or conferences, ADC consulting can manage the programming or collaborate with existing produces to curate a successful event.
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When you bring people together for a conversation, you want it to be productive for everyone involved. Alejandra is skilled facilitator who can help you develop organizational culture, ideate for the future, or create more meaningful relationships.
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A captivating public speaker, Alejandra is available to develop and give keynote addresses on her areas of expertise.
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Bring a fresh perspective to your panel or podcast with Alejandra as your guest. She’s happy to speak on a wide variety of topics, including any of the areas of expertise listed on this page.
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Thinking first about what your audience needs to learn the content effectively, we review your existing curriculum, providing feedback, creating dissemination and facilitation plans, recommending activities, and more. Alternatively, we can help you develop teaching curriculum from scratch.
“Alejandra has the rare ability to not only craft a strong vision but to actualize that vision into programs, operations, and teams. She knows what it takes to run the nonprofit implementing that vision—stewarding financial resources with care, building infrastructure for smooth operations, and cultivating motivated and high-performing teams.”
JINA PAIK
Nonprofit Finance Fund
OUR SERVICES IN ACTION
OUR PROCESS
How we work
Our 4-step process is designed with transparency, collaboration, and excellence in mind to make the best use of your time and resources.
Discovery
We’ll start by finding out if we’re a good fit and then collaboratively develop a scope of work.
Discovery call
Follow-up
Scope of work & proposal design
Contracting
1-4 weeks
1
Planning & Research
Using a variety of methods, we’ll collect all relevant details needed to contextualize the project & develop a detailed execution plan.
Project execution plan (timeline, activities, deliverables, meetings)
Data collection & review
1-6 weeks
2
Execution
The execution phase will focus on carrying out all of the agreed upon activities and keeping everyone aligned and on schedule.
Progress Check
Variable
3
Evaluation
All projects include at least one post-mortem activity:
Deliverable submission & memo with reflections and/or recommendations
Post-mortem meeting
Project Experience Survey
1-2 weeks
4
Support Options
Custom scoped projects
For organizations seeking in-depth solutions tailored to their specific challenges and goals.
Our minimum level of engagement is $10,000.
Expertise on retainer
For organizations looking for as needed access to strategic counsel.
Packages of 5, 10, or 20 one-hour strategy calls are available.
Pricing
Rates are on a sliding scale of $175-350 per hour and are calculated based on the time required, size & fiscal capacity of the organization, length of the project, and areas of expertise employed.
For more details download our Process & Pricing Structure Overview.
Quality support you can rely on
Partner with ADC Consulting to simplify your day-to-day and amplify your impact. Schedule a time that’s convenient to discuss how we can help meet your organization’s immediate and long-term needs.