Case Study: From Five Disparate Programs to a Staff-Led Nonprofit Cooperative

Sector: Interfaith coexistence, community building, education, and social justice nonprofit

Role: Engaged as Strategic Development Consultant by the organization's founders; the role evolved over time into Director of Operations, then COO, over an eight-year tenure

The Challenge

Four founders had built five distinct, well-loved programs at a previous organization — until that organization discontinued all of them. Determined to keep the work alive, they set out to launch an independent nonprofit, but were starting from nearly nothing: $20,000 in seed funding, an outreach network limited to personal contacts, no digital infrastructure, and no appetite for fundraising. The founders were gifted educators with no cohesive organizational identity connecting their programs, and no business or compliance infrastructure to operate as a nonprofit at all.

The Approach

The first year focused on building the organization's foundation: securing a fiscal sponsor to operate under while retaining full autonomy to grow independently, recruiting a founding board, and drafting bylaws that reflected the founders' preference for a more egalitarian structure — splitting governance into a Board of Directors holding fiscal responsibility and a Board of Advisors holding vision and values. From there, the work shifted to unifying five separate programs under one identity, building project management and finance frameworks, and developing the organization's first strategic plan.

As the role evolved from consultant into operational leadership, so did the organization's ambition. In 2019, programming moved from in-person retreats to a virtual model — a shift completed just ahead of the pandemic, which left the organization positioned to grow while many peer nonprofits saw giving decline. The most significant structural decision came when the organization separated from its fiscal sponsor: rather than adopting a conventional board-led model, it restructured as a worker self-directed nonprofit, with staff serving as the governing board. Some founding board members opposed the change and threatened to withdraw support. The organization moved forward with it regardless, rebuilding the bylaws and training staff to hold both operational and governance responsibility.

The Outcome

Revenue grew nearly 80% in the first year under the new staff-led model and continued climbing for several years after, funding new staff, faculty, and programming. Most of the board members who had opposed the restructuring returned within a year as donors and volunteers. A volunteer program grew from a handful of board seats to 25–30 volunteer-led initiatives. Programs became competitive enough to require turning away qualified applicants for the first time. Over the full tenure, the organization's budget grew roughly tenfold, program participation increased 4–5x, the scholarship fund nearly doubled, and the organization built a recognizable community brand, a trained internal marketing function, and a custom project management system built specifically for its staff and culture — all while operating as one of a small number of nonprofit worker cooperatives in its field.