What we do
We partner with foundations, nonprofits, and their networks to build strategies, understand context, measure progress, and facilitate decision making.
We customize our work around what matters most to you. Together, we set goals, assess your landscape, transform ideas into action, and implement plans that work equitably and effectively.
Publications
Humanities-Based Community Development in Pennsylvania: Insights from PHC’s Heart & Soul Project, with Elizabeth Myrick, for Pennsylvania Humanities, 2021.
“Learning as We Go: How Emergent Process Supports Sustainable Community and Philanthropic Change,” Foundation Review, vol. 14, issue 2, 2022.
“Internal Culture, External Impact” in Foundation Review’s 15th Anniversary Issue: Celebrating 15 Years of Knowledge Building for Transformation, vol. 16, issue 1, 2024.
Many Hands, More Impact: Philanthropy’s Role in Supporting Movements. 2013. Washington, DC: Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.
Featured Projects
PA Humanities
Community Heart & Soul Learning Project
Lessons from a place-based community development program connecting the humanities with social change RMW Consulting designed and led the Pennsylvania Humanities (PH) Community Heart & Soul Learning Project, a year-long effort surfacing and sharing lessons learned and opportunities to improve PH’s place-based civic engagement program connecting the public humanities with social change. PH sought greater clarity about the direct experience of participants in three pilot Community Heart & Soul locations and from PH’s staff, board, and funders.
Uncovering the personal, community, and broader social impacts of this community-based bridge-building program The Fetzer Institute engaged us to evaluate the outcomes and impact of Living Room Conversations (its grantee) on participants and to explore in-depth the personal, community, and broader social experiences of the LRC methodology. The research and deliverables included: a literature review on Bridge Building Literature, Theory, and Practice; an assessment of LRC participants’ experience; and a set of case stories on the program’s transformative components.
Fetzer Institute
Evaluation of Living Room Conversations
Our learning and evaluation services range from exploratory research to long-term impact analysis. We have deep experience with a broad range of evaluation approaches and methods, both qualitative and quantitative, and are practitioners of the Equitable Evaluation Framework™.
-
Evaluation feasibility assessment
-
Evaluation design and implementation
-
Evaluation coaching and capacity building
-
Learning process design
-
Community and other stakeholder engagement
Learning and Evaluation
Publications
Stories of Change from BUILD 3.0, BUILD Health Challenge resources, December 2022.
Nineteen Stories from the Field: What Systems Change Looks Like in Communities, BUILD Health Challenge resources, October 2019.
“Smarter Philanthropy for Greater Impact,” Special Supplement to the Spring 2014 Stanford Social Innovation Review. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.
“It’s Not Foundation Money but Culture and Talent That Can Change the World,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, Feb. 10, 2016.
Featured Projects
Highly participatory planning process to affirm and refine BUILD’s mission, vision, strategic priorities, influence levers, and key success metrics The BUILD Health Challenge has engaged RMW Consulting in multiple strategic planning and research services over several years. Most recently, we partnered with BUILD’s funder steering committee to undertake a “strategic refresh,” affirming and refining its mission, vision, strategic priorities, influence levers, and key success metrics. The network of BUILD grantees were embedded in this highly-participatory process and approved the new strategic roadmap, along with the steering committee. The outcomes of this engagement were a revised strategic framework, with BUILD’s commitment to racial equity and justice newly centered, and stronger relationships between funders, awardees, and BUILD as an intermediary resulted.
BUILD Health Challenge at the de Beaumont Foundation
Strategic Refresh
Supporting the leadership team’s development of Changent’s future identity, long-term strategic-direction, and operational model Changent (formerly Nurse-Family Partnership) has undertaken a major brand and strategic refresh and engaged RMW Consulting to help the organization articulate its expanded purpose and role in family well-being, and confirm its programs, services, partnership approach, and business model. RMW Consulting is facilitating the leadership team through a series of working and decision making sessions at the end of which they will present a proposed organizational identity, long-term strategic-direction, and operational model to Changent’s board for final approval.
Changent (formerly Nurse-Family Partnership)
10-yr Strategy
We co-design organizational and program strategies and develop supporting implementation plans. Working with leaders and their staffs and boards, we use different planning approaches based on context and need, ranging from design thinking to scenario-based planning, SWOT and PEST analyses, and futures thinking.
-
Theories of Change
-
Strategic Planning Facilitation
-
Strategic “Refreshes”
-
Program & Process Design
-
Implementation Planning
-
Program Launch
-
Change Management
Strategy and Planning
Publications
“Systems Change and Equity Go Hand-in-Hand,” Grantmakers for Effective Organizations blog, May 31, 2018.
“The Strength of Social Enterprise: Beyond Survival to Growth,” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2017.
Research on Social Entrepreneurship. 2006. Editor. Indianapolis, IN: Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action.
Who Speaks for America’s Children? The Role of Child Advocates in Public Policy. 2001. Editor, with Carol De Vita. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.
Featured Projects
Informing two consecutive NeighborWorks’ five-year strategic plans with market research and brand perception In 2020, we conducted a Market and Competitor Analysis to inform its strategic planning process. Between 2022-23, we supported a grantmaking redesign process done in partnership with a 12-person steering committee interested in defining “equitable grantmaking” approaches and practices for its nearly $90 mill in annual grant funding. The participatory process yielded a new framework for grantmaking across the NeighborWorks network and a detailed implementation plan and rollout timeline over the next two years to support NW’s implementation of new practices and learning. Most recently, our team completed another Market and Competitor Analysis to support NeighborWorks’ 2025-2028 strategic plan, after it explicitly added goals for racial wealth building and equitable community development to its previous strategic plan.
NeighborWorks America
Market and Competitor Analyses (2020, 2024)
Supporting two foundation strategic planning processes with extensive landscape research spanning issues, demographics, regional challenges, and racial and economic disparities California Wellness Foundation & John R Oishei Foundation: In 2025 and 2023 (respectively), RMW supported two foundation strategic planning processes with expansive landscape analyses. These efforts included extensive stakeholder interviews and desk research on the data and trends - spanning issues, demographics, regional challenges, and racial and economic disparities - informing these grantmakers’ future strategy. This information supported an Emergent Learning and Strategic Foresight Workshop with their planning committees.
California Wellness Foundation, John R. Oishei Foundation
Landscape Analyses
We help our partners take stock of the context in which they work and the roles and capacities needed for the change they seek. Our approaches to landscape and market research do more than inform strategic direction—they also create opportunities to spark and strengthen lasting relationships grounded in mutual respect and trust.
-
Ecosystem analyses
-
Literature reviews
-
Market and brand research
-
Stakeholder story gathering and communication development
Landscape and Market Research
Featured Projects
Center for Evaluation Innovation
Design and Facilitation of 2-day Staff Retreat
Supporting CEI staff and leadership to convene about the organization’s future scope, leadership, and structure in light of the Co-Executive Directors’ exit from CEI
Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation
Design and Facilitation of Leadership Retreat
Helping Beeck Center leaders to develop a deeper connection across the team establish what the new leadership team configuration means, what they could learn from looking back, and how they can move forward together
National Academy for Sciences
Roundtable on Population Health Improvement
Facilitation of strategic planning retreat, supporting a virtual pre-meeting and full-day retreat to review the Roundtable’s history, vision, and mission, articulate its unique role in the population health field, and establish a framework to guide a subsequent 2-3 year strategic plan
We offer inclusive facilitation that creates the shared understanding, structure, and momentum necessary for making decisions that everyone feels great about! Our team is trained in methods that connect diverse perspectives, actively resist white-dominant constraints, and marry heart with mind to make decisions grounded in both shared values and reliable, relevant data (broadly defined).
-
Focused working sessions
-
Board, staff, and grantee retreats
-
Governance review and board meeting facilitation
