ICA Fund
Through Spring Impact, I train and coach organizations on Lean Impact, a powerful framework to innovate more quickly and strategically towards a scalable strategy for impact. I usually work with organizations 1:1, but have also developed and delivered group cohort and asynchronous learning experiences along with my Spring Impact colleagues.
In 2024, ICA Fund, a nonprofit providing “coaching, connections, and capital to grow great Bay Area businesses,” enlisted Spring Impact to help them explore scale strategies.
My co-facilitator and I guided the ICA Fund team through setting shared goals, prototyping MVPs, testing with users, and responding to data. As usual, we found that we could iterate and learn much faster than we thought we could. Within weeks, we had big ideas and assumptions on paper that had previously only been in the team’s heads. (Read about a sample workshop). Soon, we had prototype pitch decks and one-pagers ready to share with potential partners. Most importantly, we quickly had real reactions from the stakeholders who would be critical to our draft scale strategy. Because this innovation journey was so critical to ICA Fund’s core strategy, Spring Impact was also invited to Board meetings to share and support the team through key organizational decisions.
This experience is typical in my Lean Impact work with over 20 nonprofit organizations. When real insights start pouring in from our target audience, teams can begin validating or invalidating long-held assumptions. Because insights can often surface more questions, the process can sometimes challenging and even circular. But with the help of a guide, “relentlessly seeking impact at scale” can also be incredibly rewarding. For mission-driven leaders and social changemakers, this process cuts to the real reason we’re all here - to make a difference at scale.
Other Lean Impact Clients (selected): ICA Fund, Communities in Schools, National Domestic Workers Alliance, SmartStart (South Africa), Grow Great (South Africa), ThinkZone (India), Amala Education (UK), Vehicles for Change, Govern for America, Education SuperHighway
Total Spark
Empower Work, a nonprofit supporting vulnerable workers through a peer text line, launched a pilot initiative with Verizon’s Total Wireless team to support working students in Chicago, Dallas, and Detroit.
The team brought me on to manage the initiative and ground it in a learning mindset. I oversaw all aspects of the pilot from setting the learning agenda to initial marketing to RFP selection process to supporting the five nonprofit grantees in launching local events for working students.
We exceeded goals for interest in our community webinars and applications for the first-time grant. We selected five organizations across three target cities and are in process of launching the first events.
Benefits for the Future
When nonprofit Commonwealth was envisioning a multi-year initiative to improve the financial health of 2.5 million workers earning low-to-moderate incomes through intentional employee benefits, they brought me onboard to lay the groundwork for the project. I conducted issue-based landscape analysis, partner development, and project planning. As the project has continued, I have supported the team through research, partnerships, and strategy work.
Specifically, I helped write the first long-form brief establishing Commonwealth’s point of view on intentional employee benefits that support retirement savings for workers living on low-to-moderate incomes.
