Connor Daley
Principal Consultant, Riverland Strategies
I help mission-driven organizations make clear, durable decisions when the stakes are real. Riverland Strategies is my nonprofit strategy practice, built for the leaders and communities carrying the hardest and most necessary work in our sector.
My work runs across strategy development, systems architecture, governance design, and organizational stabilization. I bring more than nineteen years of experience in philanthropy, nonprofit management, and governance to every engagement.
Vermont roots, national reach
I am a sixth-generation Vermonter, raised in the Northeast Kingdom, the son of a math professor and a career and technical education administrator. My first job was at Kingdom Trails in East Burke. That is where I learned what a small nonprofit can do for a community and leadership's role in setting direction and building resources, and where I grew from a front-desk hire into leading daily operations, drafting the budget, managing donor and partner relationships, and advising and managing a board.
At the University of Vermont I studied European History, with a focus on British constitutional history, alongside Canadian Studies. This was an education in the intersection of political, cultural, gender, sexual, indigenous, institutional, and narrative strategies about how the West was formed and, critically, what we got wrong. I was elected to serve two terms as student body president, represented students across seventeen university committees and boards, built new representation structures for first-generation students and those from rural communities, helped launch the University of Vermont Foundation, and led a financial restructuring of a $3.8M independent budgeting process that other universities went on to copy. Governance, it turned out, was the through-line long before I had a word for it.
The two decades since have moved through philanthropy, executive search, public finance, and public power. The question underneath all of it stayed the same. How do good organizations make good decisions when resources are tight, the context is shifting, and the outcome matters to real people.
A career that kept following the current
Kingdom Trails Association
From front-desk attendant to daily operations manager for an outdoor recreation and conservation nonprofit in rural Vermont. The first lesson in how a small organization changes a place.
Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group
Associate consultant serving higher education and private philanthropy, with a focus on new program design and team deployment.
Talent Citizen
Supported the philanthropy, strategic learning, and community power practice at a woman-owned executive search and talent strategy firm. Partnered with national nonprofits, foundations, and universities to conduct in-depth interested party engagement, design and restructure leadership teams, and recruit executives who could build the collective work, not just fill a chair. Built strategic, ongoing relationships with national organizations, coalitions, research institutions, and funders.
Vermont Public Power Supply Authority
Interim government and public affairs lead for Vermont's joint action agency for public power, coordinating grant development that helped secure more than $60 million in state and federal energy funding.
For The Long Term
Director of partnerships for a national public finance nonprofit. Secured $3.1 million in new philanthropic funding within six months, including admission to the Ford Foundation's BUILD program, and contributed to the design and content development of the organization's first annual report.
Riverland Strategies
Principal consultant and founder. A nonprofit strategy practice for the leaders and communities doing structural work in a difficult season. Since founding it, I have advised on two mergers, overhauled an organization's operating budget and fundraising plan, helped build two statewide sector infrastructure initiatives, advised numerous selectboards, provided strategy counsel to three statewide political campaigns and to four state senate and six house races, launched a civic and nonprofit leadership community of practice, and more.
Founded in a hard season, on purpose
I launched Riverland Strategies in November 2024. I was watching policy and funding threats gather against the nonprofit sector, and I started the practice as a side project, offering pro bono support to organizations working at the intersection of direct community intervention, structural change, and policy. The need was immediate and the response was clear. In March 2025 I left For The Long Term to give Riverland my full attention.
The name comes from two elements of the natural world, water and earth. It was born one evening on the banks of the Passumpsic, Abenaki for clear running water, in the Northeast Kingdom, under a bending tree. Earth and water shape each other and are of each other. I try to bring that same responsiveness to the work, pushing when the moment calls for it and yielding when it does not.
I hold that the phrase “strategic plan” is close to an oxymoron. The rigid, linear version of planning leaves no room for the learning, unlearning, and relearning that real change requires. I work instead from an emergent strategy framework, in the tradition adrienne maree brown describes as growing a compelling future together through relatively simple interactions.
There is no stock template for the good that the people can do.
What Riverland does
Riverland provides senior strategy counsel to nonprofits, community-based organizations, foundations, and initiatives. Engagements are structured as flat-fee retainers, so the focus stays on the work rather than the clock. The practice spans six areas.
Strategy & Planning
Trust-based planning and facilitation that clarifies tradeoffs, aligns interested parties, and turns community vision into action an organization can carry. This work carries through to narrative framing, strategic communications, and the funder and policymaker translation that move a mission into the rooms where decisions get made.
Governance & Board Development
Board role clarity, governance structure, and the discipline boards need to make high-stakes decisions with confidence and long-term stewardship.
Coalition & Ecosystem Development
Systems and actor mapping, partner alignment, and shared infrastructure that reduces duplication and strengthens a whole field, not just one organization.
Organizational Stabilization & Viability
Steady counsel through crisis, transition, merger, and turnaround, including financial controls, scenario planning, and continuity when the ground is moving.
Systems Design & Research
Landscape and field scans, qualitative analysis, and participatory research that give leaders a clear read of the terrain before they commit.
Leadership & Team Architecture
Finding the right people and building the right structure around them are two of the highest-leverage decisions an organization makes. I design the team architecture that serves the mission and run rigorous search processes that fill leadership and board roles for both culture fit and culture add, alongside succession planning and mission-alignment analysis. The org chart is a strategic document, not a directory.
Riverland specializes in organizations led by
This is where the practice is sharpest. Riverland exists to move resources, clarity, and durable structure toward the leaders too often asked to do the most with the least.
A record of durable results
Board & civic leadership
The work does not stop at consulting. I sit on boards and advisory bodies because governance is a practice best kept sharp from the inside.
Board Chair
Chittenden Housing Corporation, the nonprofit arm of the Winooski Housing Authority, stewarding roughly 150 affordable units.
Executive Committee
Pride Center of Vermont, the state's only statewide LGBTQIA+ organization.
Advisory Board
Vermont Nonprofit Legal Hub, building shared legal infrastructure for the sector.
Previously
Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport Commission, Winooski Planning Commission, and Green Mountain Transit advisory committees.
Off the clock
I am a cross-country skier and a stubbornly competitive backgammon player. I design typefaces for fun, follow British politics more closely than is strictly reasonable, and can name most NPR hosts by voice alone. Given a free weekend, I am usually chasing a good meal somewhere across Vermont.
“…many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.”
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, the North Star of the practice
Let's talk about the work ahead
For an introduction or an expression of partnership interest, I would be glad to hear from you.
connor@riverlandstrategies.comContact us
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