Consulting solutions for organizations that have to decide something.
We take on work where the outcome is a decision, a design, or a defensible piece of evidence — not a document that circulates and settles. Scopes are fixed-fee, deliverables are named in writing, and the reasoning is always shown.
What we are usually hired to do.
Evaluation design & delivery
Theories of change, logic models, indicator frameworks, baseline and outcome studies, developmental evaluation for programs still taking shape, and funder-ready reporting.
Rapid evidence reviews
A structured scan of what is already known about your question — typically three to six weeks — with a plain-language brief and an honest account of where the evidence is thin.
Strategy & program design
Needs assessments, service design, pilot design with a built-in learning plan, and business cases that survive a board's questions.
Knowledge mobilization plans
Audience mapping, product design (briefs, toolkits, sessions), dissemination channels, and reach and uptake measures you can actually track.
Community & stakeholder engagement
Consultation design and facilitation, advisory table set-up, participatory workshops, and what-we-heard reporting back to the people who spoke.
Organizational learning
Building an internal evaluation or research function: role design, tooling, data governance, and coaching the people who will run it.
No hourly guessing games.
- A free 30-minute scoping call, before anything is quoted.
- A written scope naming deliverables, dates, decision points, and who is responsible for what.
- A fixed fee, with a stated change process if the scope moves.
- Community and not-for-profit rates, applied without a negotiation.
- A named lead who stays on the file from scoping through hand-over.
- 4–6 weeks
Evidence brief for a board decision
Scan of the literature and comparable programs, interviews with three or four peer organizations, and a six-page brief with options and trade-offs.
- 3–4 months
Evaluation framework for a multi-site program
Theory of change built with staff and participants, indicator set, data collection instruments, and a dashboard the team maintains itself.
- 6–12 months
Developmental evaluation of a new service
Embedded learning cycles with quarterly reflection sessions, so design changes are made during the pilot rather than after it.
What we reach for, and when.
Rapid evidence assessment
Structured search with stated inclusion criteria and quality appraisal. Used when a decision is weeks away and the literature is large but scattered.
Contribution analysis
For programs where a control group is impossible — most social programs — it builds a defensible case for what the program contributed, and what it did not.
Developmental evaluation
Embedded feedback loops during a pilot, so the design changes while there is still time to change it.
Participatory methods
Community members set questions and interpret findings. Used where the people affected hold knowledge the administrative data cannot show.
Mixed-methods design
Survey and administrative data for scale, interviews and observation for mechanism. Each answers a question the other cannot.
Process mapping
Walking a service end to end from the user's side, which is usually where the difference between policy and practice becomes visible.
What we ask of you.
Good advisory work is not a service you receive passively. The engagements that go well share four things:
- A single decision-maker who can say yes, and roughly two hours of their time a month.
- Honest access to what has already been tried, including what failed.
- Willingness to hear a finding you did not commission and would rather not have.
- Someone internal who will own the work after hand-over — named at the start, not at the end.
Tell us what you are trying to change.
Most engagements begin with a 30-minute scoping call. Bring the problem, the timeline, and whatever evidence you already have — we will tell you honestly whether we are the right partner, and what a realistic scope looks like.
- Fixed-fee scopes with deliverables agreed in writing before work starts.
- Not-for-profit and community rates, plus pro bono capacity each year.
- Bilingual delivery (English and French) and fully accessible materials.
- Every engagement leaves behind tools your team can use without us.