The Strategy Studio
Strategy. Community. Real Talk. A peer network for nonprofit executive directors and CEOs who are done running the organization on duct tape and willpower.
Join the communityFree to Join
The Strategy Studio Community
The seat at the top of a nonprofit is the loneliest one in the sector. This is a room of executive directors and CEOs from across the country who will not make you explain why that is true.
Free to join. We ask a few questions first, so we can keep the room to people actually sitting in that seat. Come see how we work before you decide anything.
Open sessions with peers
Thriving Nonprofit HQ self-assessment
The full session archive
Framework library access
The Cohort
Studio Live
Four months of building the infrastructure underneath your organization, alongside a small group of peers carrying the same weight you are.
Twice a month
Seventy-five minutes
Thirty seats
Paid cohort
We build it one element at a time
Every organization that runs well has the same seven parts underneath it. Most of them were never built on purpose. Studio Live takes one element per session, in the order they actually depend on each other: the foundation first, then the pillars, then the roof.
Development lands while you are building year-end appeals. Finance lands in budget season. That is on purpose. You leave able to say where your organization is strong, where it is thin, and what you are fixing first.
THE SEVEN ELEMENTS
Strategic Foundation · Governance · Development · People · Programs · Finance · Protective Roof
Community members hear when applications open, and they hear first.
From the Archive
Watch what you missed
Recordings of every past session live in the Community, free.
SESSION RECORDING
The Strategic Foundation You Need to Thrive
Featuring Iona Calhoun-Battiste, Stephen Martin, and Laura Zumdahl on what holds an organization steady when everything else is moving.
Watch the recordingSESSION RECORDING
Managing Finance Without a CFO
Featuring Mark Rodriguez, Juliette Buford, and Omari Kamal on running clean financial operations when there is no finance chief in the building.
Watch the recordingPast Faculty
Practitioners who have taught in the Studio, and the session each one led.
Iona Calhoun-Battiste
Senior Director, The Chicago Community Trust
The Strategic Foundation You Need to Thrive
Stephen Martin
Executive Director, CPASS Foundation
The Strategic Foundation You Need to Thrive
Laura Zumdahl
President and CEO, New Moms
The Strategic Foundation You Need to Thrive
Mark Rodriguez
CEO, Lohengrin Foundation
Managing Finance Without a CFO
Juliette Buford
Deputy Director, Marwen
Managing Finance Without a CFO
Omari Kamal
Fractional CFO, P&G Advisors
Managing Finance Without a CFO
Is the Strategy Studio for you?
Peer support
Executive directors and CEOs who understand the pressure at the top, because they are carrying it too. Not board members, not funders, not vendors.
Grounded, not generic
Frameworks built from real organizational situations, not sector theory. You will recognize your own organization in them.
Real talk
A facilitated space to be honest about what is actually working and what is not. Every session ends with one thing you can hand to someone else.
Start where you are
The Community is free and open to nonprofit CEOs and Executive Directors. If you are not sure whether Studio Live is right for you, start here and come to an open session. You will know by the end of it.