WolfBrown is a dynamic team of diversely-skilled professionals who bring creative thinking and thoughtful solutions to some of the nonprofit sector’s most pressing and complex challenges. What’s behind WolfBrown’s reputation as a leading advisor to foundations, public agencies and charitable organizations?
Our capacity to undertake a broad range of projects
We’re able to take on large, complex projects that require innovative design, intensive process coordination and a skilled supporting cast to do the technical work.
Our toolbox of innovative methods
Over many years, we have developed and tested measurement tools, planning processes and meeting formats that animate learning and precipitate rich dialogue.
Our goal is not only to solve problems, but to leave behind an expanded client capacity to tackle future challenges.
Our grounding in research
WolfBrown is one of the country’s top providers of research-based knowledge to the cultural sector. Study after study, we have accumulated a vast body of data on cultural participation, macro trends and emerging practices that respond to the changing environment. We are constantly scanning the field, both nationally and internationally, for new thinking, new language and new strategies that might be of use to our clients.
Clarity on the changing environment
Our work is deeply symbiotic. The lessons learned in one situation are applied immediately to our subsequent work.
In this fashion we are constantly learning, refining our methods and challenging our assumptions. Cumulatively, this experience affords us a sweeping perspective on the changing environment in which nonprofits do business and the forces that will re-shape their future.
Cross-disciplinary and cross-sector thinking
Time and time again, we find that innovation happens when the boundaries around disciplines are removed.
Many of our clients work in fields that are shaped by benchmarking and other self-referential behavior, rather than organic planning based on original thinking. What can cultural organizations learn from the social service sector?
What can a large foundation learn from a small service organization?
What can a theatre learn from a museum?
Cross-disciplinary and cross-sector thinking allows us to find answers that have been out of view.
A learning consciousness
At the start of every project, we invite our clients to enter a learning consciousness.
Doing so requires vulnerability (i.e., my assumptions might be incorrect), fortitude (i.e., we are going somewhere that we can’t see yet) and trust (i.e., we can only get there together). In this learning consciousness, anything is possible.
Without it, meaningful change is unlikely. This is why, in many of our projects, we ask our clients to actively participate in the learning process, right along side us.
Diagnostic skills
The many challenges facing nonprofit agencies and institutions can be complicated and interdependent. And there is only so much time, energy and money to address them. The initial step in any project – and one that is often skipped – is a diagnostic one. Just as a physician would first make a diagnosis before recommending treatment, there is no sense in plunging ahead with a research or planning project without a clear definition of objectives and without first considering a variety of process designs. WolfBrown can lead you through a process of defining your needs and then make recommendations as to what research or planning approaches would most efficiently address them.
For information about how WolfBrown can meet your needs, contact any of our three offices.
Our services fall into four categories: