Consulting
Most organizations don't need a new strategy. They need the one they already agreed on to become something a person can do on a Tuesday.
That's the work — program design and implementation. Taking a goal that's sitting in a strategic plan and turning it into something that runs, with the people who'll have to run it.
This is an intentionally small practice. I take on few partners and I stay a long time. Two years with the Houston Food Bank. A year and a half on Red Sand Project. I build the team around what the work turns out to need — some of it is just me, some of it is five of us.
How it goes
It's co-designed, which makes it slower at the start and means it holds afterward. That's why the engagements run in years rather than quarters.
Who's in the room
Everyone with a stake in it. Staff, leadership, funders, and the people the program is actually for — that last group being the one usually missing, and the one who knows whether it will work.
For Dining with Purpose, at least half of every cohort had lived experience of food insecurity. They were paid $65 an hour and their rides were arranged. Expertise gets compensated.
Houston Food Bank
Two years. Strategic Goal 4: Advocacy for Social Change and Sustainability.
They hired me as lead strategist to activate a goal that had been agreed and not yet operationalized. I ran research, designed and piloted three programs, wrote the white paper, assembled the committee, and helped build the strategy they're working from now.
I conceived and created Dining with Purpose and facilitated twenty-four dinners across a six-session arc. Curriculum development with Maria Del Carmen and Tracie Jae. Supported by HEB, The Levant Foundation and the Big Dog Little Dog Fund, with dinners hosted by Mimo, Bohemeos, Jackson and Company, Texan Book Kitchen, Doshi House and 535 Catering.
Community Conversations turned a two-hour volunteer shift into something else — teams of ten, a facilitated conversation at the table, then a state-of-the-community session. Informed by More in Common and the Othering & Belonging Institute. Over 190 people came through it.
Independently surveyed by More in Common, a national research nonprofit. Not our numbers.
I recommend him for his ability to mentally, spiritually, physically and intellectually synthesize direct and subtle information and systems. When a team needs to re-think where to go and how to get there, David is a person of integrity that is service and end result focused. Sara Speer Selber · Managing Partner, QuestEssential
He is excellent with people and is fully capable of working both with a team and independently. David is detail oriented and does not let important matters wait. He has extensive experience in strategic planning, product development and what it takes for a program to work. Donna Baker-Miller · VP Government Affairs
This was the first time I saw myself as part of the solution. Dining with Purpose participant
Red Sand Project
A year and a half with Molly Gochman's anti-trafficking project. Marketing support and photography documentation, and liaison with the City of Houston and Harris County.
Proclamations secured from both.
Tell me what you're trying to operationalize
Send me the goal that's been sitting in the plan. I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person for it, and who is if I'm not.