Steward"The consultant 247 nonprofits called when the mission was at stake."
As seen in the field
Est. 2016 · Nonprofit Operations · Executive Advisory
The consultant 247 nonprofits
called when the mission
was at stake.
Steward sits across the table from executive directors drowning in compliance audits, lapsed grants, and boards that haven't fundraised in years — and rebuilds the operational backbone so the mission can breathe again.
Serving founding EDs, board chairs, and interim leaders of nonprofits with $250K–$5M annual budgets.
94% of clients return for phase two
When the auditor finds what the board missed.
A founding ED at a $1.4M community health nonprofit received a qualified opinion on three consecutive audits. Grant renewals were stalling. The finance committee hadn't met in fourteen months. We rebuilt the internal controls, restaffed the treasurer role, and cleared the audit backlog in a single fiscal year.
Clean audit. Grant renewed. Board finance committee meeting monthly — for the first time in four years.
Most compliance crises are governance crises wearing a finance hat. We treat both simultaneously.
3 audits cleared
Consecutive qualified opinions resolved in 11 months
Organizations in this engagement cluster
Eastside Community Foundation
Community development · $1.8M
Northgate Health Alliance
Public health · $950K
River District Neighbors
Housing advocacy · $620K
Millbrook Arts Council
Arts & culture · $410K
+340%
Board giving increase over 18-month engagement
Organizations in this engagement cluster
Lakeview Health Foundation
Health equity · $2.1M
Sunrise Family Services
Social services · $1.3M
Cedar Valley Hospice
Palliative care · $780K
Harbor Youth Initiative
Youth development · $490K
A board that hadn't fundraised in three years.
The board chair of a regional health foundation inherited an organization where eleven of fourteen board members had never made a personal gift. We redesigned the board giving agreement, ran a two-day board retreat, and built an individual solicitation pipeline from scratch. Board giving increased 340% in 18 months.
340% increase in board giving. Every member made a personal gift for the first time in the organization's history.
Board culture doesn't change through policy. It changes through structured conversation and clear expectations, held consistently.
Sixty days to fiscal year close. No ED. No succession plan.
A program director at a $2.3M workforce development nonprofit was handed the organization when the founding ED resigned with sixty days left in the fiscal year. No transition documents. No board succession policy. We stepped in as operational advisor, closed the year clean, and built the succession infrastructure before the permanent hire arrived.
Fiscal year closed within 2% of budget. Permanent ED hired into an organization with a documented operational backbone for the first time.
Interim leadership crises are rarely about the leader. They're about the systems that were never built while the founding ED held everything in their head.
60 days
To close a fiscal year with no transition plan in place
Organizations in this engagement cluster
Metro Workforce Alliance
Workforce development · $2.3M
Greenfield Literacy Project
Education · $340K
Westside Immigrant Services
Immigration support · $1.1M
Clearwater Land Trust
Conservation · $870K
How we work
The field manual,
chapter by chapter.
No discovery theater. No 90-page strategy decks that sit on a shelf. Steward works in the operational layer — bylaws, budgets, board dynamics — where change is actually made.
Diagnostic Call
45 minutes. We map what's broken, what's urgent, and what's structural. You leave with clarity regardless of whether we work together.
Operational Audit
We read your bylaws, grant agreements, financials, and board minutes. Two weeks of deep reading before we make a single recommendation.
Rebuild Protocol
A phased engagement — typically 90 days — targeting the highest-risk operational gaps. No retainer lock-in. Deliverables at every milestone.
Institutional Transfer
Every system, template, and process we build gets documented and handed off. You own the backbone. We step back when the mission is breathing.
Start here
Book a
Diagnostic Call.
A 45-minute conversation to map what's broken, what's urgent, and whether Steward is the right fit. No pitch deck. No retainer required to book.
Free resource
The Board Health
Checklist
The 23-point diagnostic we run on every board before our first engagement. Identifies governance gaps, giving capacity, and succession risk — in under 20 minutes.
- —Governance structure audit
- —Individual giving baseline
- —Succession readiness score
- —Meeting cadence health
"I printed this checklist and brought it to my next board meeting. We identified three governance gaps we'd been ignoring for two years."
— Diane Okafor, Executive Director, Eastside Community Foundation