Forward. Together.

Design. Execute. Advocate. Amplify.

  • Understand. Accurately define the challenge and identify desired results.
  • Design. Develop an agile, sustainable internal process to build real good, not feel good.
  • Execute. Serve as a savvy, gracious extension of your team, with first-rate implementation support. Maximize output; minimize conference calls.
  • Collaborate. Develop meaningful relationships with the right partners. Grow your network. Ignite champions.
  • Solve. Overcome sticky hurdles in international development and aid. Navigate key stakeholder relationships with dexterity and impact.
  • Influence. Build and implement focused government relations strategies to engage key leaders at the local, national and multinational levels.
  • Communicate. Build the contacts, calendar, and messaging to tell your story through the right publications, in the right venues, at the right times. Articulate a personally-meaningful legacy.

We believe that rigorous analysis, clear communication, targeted advocacy, and strategic partnerships are the keys to meaningful, game-changing social innovation.

OUR SERVICES

We believe your work – whether independent philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, community activism or corporate citizenship – is more effective when relationships are personal, communication is warm, every “i” is dotted and every “t” is crossed. We don’t settle for less, and neither should you.

 

Analysis & Design

  • Analyze gaps and opportunities to streamline corporate citizenship efforts
  • Develop comparative market analyses to enter new markets or improve program outcomes

Implementation

  • Identify appropriate legal and tax structures
  • Recruit the right talent
  • Operate grant-making strategies
  • Brief and staff senior executives
  • Manage and execute logistics for global travel

Advocacy & Partnerships

  • Engage our unique public and private networks on your behalf
  • Harness your networks
  • Negotiate and secure cross-sector partners

Communications

  • Distill and prioritize mission statement and core objectives
  • Create tailored collateral to galvanize investors, donors, boards and the public
  • Write speeches and talking points for senior executives
  • Curate a meaningful annual engagement calendar

With the right partners, you can build and sustain solutions to even the most complex social challenges.

OUR PARTNERS

WHO WE ARE

 

Celes Eckerman

Managing Partner
With nearly 20 years of experience in international development and national security policy making, Celes leverages keen political judgment, an insider’s understanding of the policy process, and a wide network of high-level influencers on behalf of our clients. Celes is a twelve-year veteran of senior personal and committee staffs in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. She has worked alongside policy makers, elected officials, global industry leaders and community activists across the United States and in more than a dozen countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Teal Brown Zimring

Managing Partner
Teal combines a background in communications, ethics and economics to bring together diverse stakeholders across sectors and demographics.  She has over a decade of experience in strategic philanthropy — including design of market-based programs, multi-organization partnerships, savvy network management and executive public relations.  She has worked alongside the leadership of companies including Nike, Inc; Nike Foundation, UN Foundation, TOMS Shoes, Two Degrees Food, Hewlett Packard and more. Teal has traveled to over twenty countries with students, policy makers, community activists, and industry leaders. She brings both diplomacy and a tireless work ethic to each client relationship.

Moh Kilani

Research Fellow
Moh Kilani is a native of Iraq, but now calls the Pacific Northwest home. Moh has a bachelor’s in biology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a master’s in Applied International Studies from the University of Washington. With a wide array of experience, ranging from export to North Africa, to Arctic sub-nationalism to working directly with Syrian refugees, Moh brings a creative approach to strategy. He is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project, and was an Arctic Initiative Fellow with the International Policy Institute at the University of Washington.

Our work is driven by optimism, integrity, collaboration.

Job Opportunities

Co-Executive Director, Strategy & Development, Edible Schoolyard

The mission of the Edible Schoolyard Project is to build and share a national Edible Education curriculum for pre-kindergarten through high school. We envision gardens and kitchens as interactive classrooms for all academic subjects, and a free, nutritious, organic lunch for every student. Integrating this curriculum into schools can transform the health and values of every child in America.

Position

Reporting to the Founder and serving as a key member of the senior leadership team, the Development Director / Co-Director will be responsible for the development of the Edible Schoolyard Project’s financial management and growth strategy and will lead the development of a lasting endowment. The Development Director / Co-Director will partner closely with the Founder and Co- Directors (2) to chart the growth and strategic response to the ever-growing need for our work. The Edible Schoolyard Project has seen great success over our 20+ years of operation through our in-school work in Oakland – and newly Berkeley – and our global online and in-person academies. We are at an inflection point. There is significant opportunity on the horizon and the right candidate will bring the creativity, diplomacy, experience and vision to help us understand and harness this opportunity.

Download PDF for details

Featured Case Studies


NEW MARKET ENGAGEMENT IN HUMANITARIAN RELIEF: COMMUNICATIONS, STRATEGY & PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

 

 

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY STRATEGY FOR START-UP ENTERPRISE: DEFINING & EXECUTING SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATIONS