Our Services
We tailor our process and approach to respond to the specific needs of each client. Our specialties include working with faith-inspired or multi-faith organizations in the non-profit, academic, and philanthropic spaces. This is not an exhaustive list, so if you don’t see something you’re looking for, reach out.
Strategy
Getting strategy right is never “one and done,” it’s an ongoing process of learning and deliberation. Our strategic advising services support your work from idea to implementation and iteration. We work with you understand the challenges, resources, and opportunities in any situation and:
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Develop Mission, Vision, and Values
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Create Theory of Change and Logic Models
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Tailor strategies for success in a pluralistic world .
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Develop partnerships across lines of difference for the common good.
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Work through internal value conflicts in complex situations.
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Identify mission-aligned funding or grantees.
Facilitation
Good facilitation can make or break a strategic retreat, convening, or collaborative effort. We create personally warm and logistically smooth gatherings to guide groups productively through decision-making or conflict. Where conflict is present, we surface disagreements with care and attention, so that participants can better understand themselves and their values, ultimately leading to better and more effective collaboration.
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We plan and facilitate convenings, conferences, and events for participants from diverse backgrounds and viewpoints.
Research
We revel in research as a tool for effective strategy. With an academic background and experience with nonprofits and funders, we bring academic rigor to practitioner audiences. Our academic research in religious and social difference and belonging and in the nonprofit sector grounds our other research activities while we keep an eye on strategic goals.
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Generate field assessments, academic surveys, development prospect research, and project reports.
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Partner with specialists in other fields to produce original research.
Evaluation
Evaluation is a central component of successful social change efforts, and we believe should focus on 1) identifying behavior change and 2) ensuring the evaluation is a useful tool to program planners. We specialize in evaluations that ask not just “how did we do,” but “what happened” so that you can answer “where do we go from here.”
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Perform Outcome Harvest evaluations to track behavior change influenced by the project. We can, if necessary, also track attitude change as part of the evaluative process.
Operations
​Sometimes a nonprofit has everything in place except systems that promote success. We can help your team develop systems and tools to get on track and stay there.
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Support small teams with project management, budgeting, and internal communications, in support of your mission and goals.
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Develop mission-aligned fee-for-service programming to support nonprofits’ bottom line.
Speaking & Advising
​We can be booked as a speaker for public events or serve as an advisor if your organization finds itself in need of special expertise.
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We have expertise in religious and ideological pluralism, the intersection of religion and philanthropy, bridgebuilding, integrity in complexity, and social cohesion.
Consulting Partnerships
Strategy, Research, and Leadership Development with Strategic Principles LLC:
​​Strategic Principles LLC Principal, Alexei Laushkin, specializes in strategic engagement with religious communities, organizing media engagements and communications, and leadership coaching. Combined with Cohesion Strategy experience convening philanthropy leaders, and research expertise on the faith-inspired nonprofit sector and on the social science and evaluation of bridging work, we can increase our impact and better serve the organizations we are so proud to support.
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Together, our organizations have four decades of experience working with faith-inspired, multifaith organizations for social change.
Measuring & Evaluation with Ripple Peace Research & Consulting LLC:
Ripple Peace Research & Consulting LLC Founder and Principal, Michelle Garred, brings two decades of experience across 35 countries to the fields of peace, justice and social impact. Michelle is a skilled facilitator of collaborative learning processes, recognized for her deep expertise in the intersections of faith, identity, and social change. Her professional journey includes senior roles at World Vision International and CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, along with a PhD in Peace Studies from Lancaster University’s Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion.
Michelle specializes in helping partners maximize the impact of their programs and through this partnership, we are poised to strengthen evaluation frameworks and leverage our combined unparalleled expertise to deepen the impact of programs promoting pluralism, reconciliation, and justice.
