“We hired Carol Hamilton to curate a strategic plan for The Cupcake Girls. Our process included meetings with staff and board. It was the middle of COVID. And like most other folks, I was overwhelmed, unclear, and confused. What stands out in our work with Carol: Her ability to hear everyone’s emotions and input (even the quiet people) with a sense of calm and an intentional ear. She also maintained clear boundaries—and intentionally kept us focused on strategic planning. I felt really safe with her, and knew that my vision was heard. I had been unsure whether we could pull this off virtually. But we all stayed engaged under Carol’s leadership. By the end, my team, board, and I had a clear, actionable plan that will allow us to grow in years to come.” —Amy-Marie Merrell, Executive Director, The Cupcake Girls
“Carol Hamilton and her team are incredibly thoughtful and effective partners. Carol creates a strong framework for her clients to do their best strategic thinking. Her humility, understanding, and earnest knowledge-seeking help to foster an equity-focused approach to her consulting engagements. It's a worry-free project when you work with Carol; she will always bring her very best while ensuring that you achieve strong outcomes.” —Wendy Wolff, MPH, Director of Strategic Engagement, Maryland Nonprofits
“While many strategic planning consultants use a firm (and sometimes unmovable!) process, Carol tailored hers to meet our needs. She’s calm, personable, relaxed, and professional. She takes time to listen. She’s clearly an expert, but doesn’t sermonize. Beyond facilitating stakeholder interviews, surveys, and focus groups, Carol brought an intercultural competence to generate great outcomes for us. These included a valuable suite of educational materials. Frankly, we dreaded trying to do strategic planning work in a pandemic, but Carol brought grace to each task. What we thought would be horrible was actually fun! As a team, we feel optimistic about our plan—one that’s both aspirational and achievable.” — Heidi, staff, educational nonprofit
Client feedback from a strategic planning process
“Thanks for a productive and successful session today. It went very well - significant engagement from all involved, a better sense of the direction we are to go to.” – Matt - Board member, local nonprofit
“There was structure about organizational needs and growth and where the organization was growing from a short-term perspective and long term. It also allowed us to think about our organization from a continuity aspect as well amid the current state of events. It also allowed us to get creative on how we can offer more programming in an ever-changing world.” – Kiel, Board member, educational enrichment nonprofit
The strategic plan itself looks phenomenal. These are seriously some of the best working sessions I’ve seen a board go through, with high level strategic goals that can be divvied up into action steps defined by board/staff. That is everything a strategic plan should be. So many get lost in the weeds.”
- Bridgette, Board member, human service nonprofit