Strategy · Fundraising · Leadership Alignment
You're doing important work.
Let's keep it from coming apart at the seams.
Somewhere between the board, the funders, the staff, and the strategy, the mission and vision threads can get lost. Braiding the loose ends back together — that's where I come in.
Why Braided
Braided Consulting is built on a simple idea: organizations are strongest when strategy, fundraising, marketing, leadership, and staff are intentionally woven together — not operating in parallel.
I help nonprofit and mission-driven leaders get clear, aligned, and ready to move when competing priorities and stakeholder dynamics pull them in different directions — clarifying what makes their organization uniquely valuable so leaders, funders, and partners understand not just what they do, but why it matters.
The name Braided reflects how I work: intertwining people, priorities, messaging, strategy, and execution so organizations can move forward with focus and momentum. I'm also comfortable collaborating alongside other consultants to meet your goals.
Engagements can be project-based, advisory, or fractional, depending on your needs.
How You'll Know This Was Worth It
Before we talk details, imagine your team is humming.
Active, creative, and engaging effectively with one another. It probably looks like this:
- Consistent, clear priorities
- Faster & aligned decisions
- Internal friction is down and accountability improves
- Supported and prepared teams
- Proactive, confident stakeholder conversations
- Sharper, more connected messaging
What We Help Leaders Do
Four ways we can get your organization unstuck.
Strategy & Focus
When priorities feel competing, scattered, or hard to execute, Braided helps leadership define sharper priorities, articulate organizational distinctiveness, and build a shared understanding of success.
Leadership & Internal Dynamics
When silos or internal friction slow progress, Braided helps teams build stronger cross-functional alignment, clearer ownership, healthier communication, and faster, more confident decision-making.
Fundraising & External Affairs
Braided prepares you for campaign or fundraising readiness, builds a sharper case for support tied to your mission, and defines clear near-term fundraising priorities and next steps.
Stakeholders & Messaging
When messaging feels reactive or inconsistent, Braided helps create coherent organizational messaging, audience-specific tools, and practical engagement plans leaders can use immediately.
Who I Usually Work With
Braided Consulting works primarily with nonprofit senior leaders and boards navigating growth, change, fundraising pressure, or organizational complexity. Through fractional work, I also love helping develop junior team members into future leaders.
Organizations typically engage Braided during moments of leadership transition or restructuring, campaign readiness or fundraising diversification, board misalignment, strategic resets, rapid growth, fragmented messaging, or cross-functional friction slowing progress.
How I Work
My approach is collaborative, focused, and practical. I bring decades of experience, a love of learning, and a commitment to listening closely to internal and external stakeholders before recommending a path forward. There's no rinse-and-repeat here — every engagement is shaped around your specific challenges, which is how Braided produces deliverables that actually work.
My work often includes facilitated leadership and alignment conversations, fundraising coordination and campaign readiness assessment, fractional fundraising support, stakeholder mapping and engagement strategy, executive messaging support, and translating complex discussions into clear, usable tools.
I am hands-on where it matters most: decisions, alignment, communication, and momentum.
Sample Engagement Types & Deliverables
What working together can look like.
Campaign Readiness Assessment
An evaluation of organizational readiness for fundraising growth or campaign activity, including messaging, leadership alignment, stakeholder dynamics, and strategic positioning.
Fractional Strategic Support
Ongoing strategic partnership during a defined season of growth, complexity, fundraising pressure, or organizational transition.
Strategy Brief with Key Messages
A concise executive-level document clarifying priorities, focus areas, messaging, and leadership direction.
Stakeholder Engagement Plan
A practical guide outlining key stakeholders, their interests, alignment opportunities, potential friction points, and engagement recommendations.
90-Day Roadmap
A focused action plan identifying priority actions, sequencing, ownership, and near-term momentum opportunities.
Leadership Messaging Tools
Talking points, narrative frameworks, briefing materials, and communication tools leaders can use with staff, boards, donors, and external stakeholders.
About Leah
25 years in the room where it happens.
For more than 25 years, I have led fundraising, communications, stakeholder engagement, and organizational strategy inside complex nonprofits — translating vision into action, alignment, and resources.
Early in my career, I didn't understand the value of consultants. But I've learned over time that they often see things from the outside that are nearly impossible to identify while deep in the work. Ironically, it's that skepticism that drew me into consulting — because I knew exactly what "drop-in commentator" felt like from the other side, and I was determined to do it differently. I know the time and money investments you're making, and it's important for you to get every bit of the value.
To do that, I combine senior-level judgment with practical execution — helping leaders see and think clearly, make difficult decisions, and leave with tools their teams can actually use.
When I'm not doing this work, I'm busy momming to two teenagers, baking challah (yup, braided bread!), walking my dog, hiking, and reading some good fiction.
Connect on LinkedIn →Let's Talk
If any of this resonates, I'd love to start with a conversation.
No agenda, no pressure — just a chance to think through where you are and where you want to go.