Riverland Strategies works alongside mission-driven organizations of all types across the country.
Every engagement is a partnership built on shared learning, and the learning runs both ways.
Representative Clients
Filter by focus
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Nonprofit Legal Hub
Project lead, advisory board (ex officio)
Leads a statewide initiative connecting Vermont nonprofits with legal counsel and equipping attorneys to serve them. Conducted a national landscape scan, mapped the state's nonprofit legal-services system, and built the coalition's governance architecture and referral design.
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Vermont Asylum Assistance Project
Ecosystem strategy and coalition design
Partnered with VAAP to strengthen Vermont's immigration legal-services ecosystem. Co-authored a white paper mapping the field, produced legislative and funder briefs, designed the coalition's governance architecture, built a geographic map of the state's legal deserts, and modeled transition scenarios for a statewide immigration legal defense fund.
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Big Brothers Big Sisters of NH & VT
Merger strategy and executive advisory
Advised the merger of two statewide affiliates into one organization. Co-authored the 2025–2030 strategic plan, introduced its Financial Resiliency pillar, unified two boards, and designed donor-advised fund and planned-giving strategies across both states.
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Local Motion
Strategic planning partner
Led a full plan refresh for Vermont's statewide walking and biking advocacy organization. Ran statewide community and partner engagement, refined organizational priorities, embedded a DEI plan directly into the strategy, and built an evaluation framework to track progress against it.
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Vermont Nonprofit HelpDesk
Design and launch advisor
Helped design and launch a single, centralized intake point where any Vermont nonprofit can bring a question. Built the referral and routing system, shaped intake processes, and reviews incoming submissions to connect organizations with the right resources.
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Powered Magazine
Fundraising advisor
Fundraising strategy and support for a BIPOC-focused outdoor recreation organization.
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Small Business Law Center, VLGS
Sustainability and replication strategy
Built financial-sustainability modeling and foundation-engagement support for the center, then designed a national toolkit to replicate its model at law schools beyond Vermont.
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End Homelessness Vermont
Fundraising and organizational development
Built fundraising and internal capacity for a direct-services organization supporting Vermonters experiencing homelessness. Work spanned grant writing, individual giving strategy, budget development, legislative budget proposals, and leadership coaching.
PLEASE NOTE: Six (6) Organizational Stabilization & Resiliency clients are not listed above per confidentiality agreements.
Selected Prior Engagements
Through roles at Talent Citizen, Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, and For The Long Term. This active network of relationships means you gain access to advice not only from Riverland Strategies, but some of the country’s leading thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, funders, and peer organizations.
FOUNDATIONS AND PHILANTHROPY
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · The James Irvine Foundation · Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation · Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation · W.K. Kellogg Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Lumina Foundation · Nellie Mae Education Foundation · Ford Foundation · Builders Vision · Nathan Cummings Foundation · Omidyar Network
HIGHER EDUCATION
The Wharton School · Harvard Business School · Colby College · Oregon Health and Science University
FUNDER COLLABORATIVES AND FIELD INITIATIVES
New Pluralists Collaborative · Equitable Evaluation Initiative · Stand Together Trust · Rockefeller Brothers Fund · Einhorn Collaborative · Disability Rights Fund
NONPROFITS AND RESEARCH
Kingdom Trails Association · First 5 Santa Clara · First 5 Marin · Room to Grow · The Possible Project · Center for Evaluation Innovation · Mathematica Policy Research
Client Spotlight
Pride Center
of Vermont
Board Executive Committee · Chair, Strategy Committee
Funding losses forced a 26-year institution into an operational pause. The board memo Connor wrote set the path from crisis toward a stronger foundation.
Role
Board Executive Committee
Chair, Strategy Committee
Joined
August 2025
Context
Operational pause, Oct 2025
Focus
Stabilize and rebuild
The Situation
A 26-year institution, paused
In October 2025, after the loss of major federal funding and years of accumulated debt, the Pride Center of Vermont paused operations. Staff were laid off on short notice. Programs that thousands of Vermonters counted on went quiet.
Connor had joined the board that August. The memo he wrote drew on Riverland Strategies frameworks and gave the board a structure to move through the pause instead of panic. It set the agenda for everything that followed.
Aug 2025
Joined the board and authored the founding memo that framed the response.
Oct 2025
Operational pause. Led stabilization and the program transition that protected care.
Winter 2026
Forensic financial review, new controls, and a statewide community mapping project.
FY27
A community-shaped strategic plan heading to board adoption.
The Response
Managing a hard moment with structure
The board and volunteers of the Pride Center carried this work out. They owned it. Riverland Strategies frameworks gave the response its structure, and Connor’s guidance shaped the path the group chose to take.
Stabilize and protect care
The first priority was people.
- Structured the staff transition with a clear communication plan and support.
- Structured the program transition so services did not simply vanish.
- Structured the transition that kept the SafeSpace Anti-Violence Program running for survivors without interruption, under the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
- Shaped the restructuring that matched operations to what the organization could sustain.
Restore financial integrity
Rebuilding trust started with the books.
- Commissioned a forensic-level financial review and operational retrospective.
- Authored new financial controls, written from the ground up.
- Supported the emergency fundraising that stabilized the organization.
- Helped steward the transformative contributions that reopened the path forward.
Set direction with the community
The next Pride Center would be shaped by the people it serves.
- Ran scenario planning to pressure-test the paths forward.
- Engaged a consultant to lead a statewide community priorities and wisdom mapping project.
- Translated that community feedback into the core pillars of the next strategic plan.
- Drafted the strategic plan framework and the action plan beneath it.
Rebuild governance
Strong governance is what keeps a crisis from repeating.
- Wrote new operational and governance controls from scratch.
- Built the policy infrastructure the board now runs on.
- Set clear expectations and accountability for how the board works.
- Pushed the board toward sustained self-reflection and development.
Community Investment
Vermont showed up
Ben & Jerry’s and Noah Kahan stepped forward with transformative support, part of an outpouring from hundreds of Vermonters and a landmark anonymous gift that reopened the path forward. That trust made the rebuild possible.
The Approach
Riverland Strategies treats organizations as living systems with their own capacity to adapt. Those frameworks gave the Pride Center a way to respond under real pressure, and the board and volunteers put them to work.
Clear communication, transparency, accountability, and steady expectation-setting turned a frightening moment into a managed one. The plan that resulted is built to keep flexing as conditions change. That is strategic metabolism in practice.
The Outcome
0
Interruptions to SafeSpace survivor care
$350K
Transformational gift that reopened the path
FY27
New strategic plan heading to adoption
The Pride Center is rebuilding on a foundation that did not exist before the pause.
New controls hold the organization steady, and a community-shaped strategy is carrying it into its next chapter.
In addition to supporting organizations, leaders, and boards professionally, I have served on multiple 501c3 boards, public commissions, and initiative advisory boards. Here, I leverage specific Riverland frameworks to help inform my service and experiment with new ideas. Thus, while community service is central to Riverland Strategies’ work and my personal values, it also serves as a living laboratory for piloting, testing, evaluating, and refining governance structures and decision-making processes. This means the work of Riverland Strategies is perpetually timely, innovative, and - most importantly - grounded in reality.