Consulting
I help individuals, organizations, and communities create better outcomes by providing the strategies, tactics, and tools to radically improve goal-setting, decision-making, engagement, and implementation.
Work will typically (but not always) come somewhere near the form of one of the following models:
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Available. |
Brainstorming | Advising | Mentoring. Typically more short-term in duration, ranging from a single event or several individual conversations, up to one or two months, this is the least "intensive" level of service. Sometimes, all you need is a fresh set of eyes or outside perspective to help think through a business plan, campaign strategy, policy proposal, program implementation, or new hire. Between surveys, virtual meetings, documentation collaboration, team discussions, onsite visits, vision sessions, and more, together we can help you focus in on whatever is front of you. I've helped advise many candidates for elected office (mostly local, of all party affiliations), individuals interested in starting a business or nonprofit organization, or those already in government. Some of these have been provided as pro bono advisorships/mentorships or workshops through existing organizations such as with Sustainable Jersey, New Leaders Council, Millennial Action Project, Run for America, Civic Hall, Rutgers Eagleton School, Seton Hall University, John Jay College and many more. |
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Available. |
Planning | Evaluating | Facilitating. Typically several months or longer in duration, this is a more in-depth level of service. This involves taking a deeper dive into the vision or goals of any particular organization or project. In addition to the above, this may include independent research or data collection, the creation or development of original work product that can be used to help guide or implement on your project, or facilitated team or stakeholder meetings. Examples of prior engagements at this level of service include work with Run for America, the Citizens Campaign, Living Cities, John Jay College Foundation, the Philadelphia Citizen, and many more. |
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Not available at this time.
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Implementing & Managing. This is the most intensive level of service, and is usually full-time, or close to it (or more than it). Typically, this is a longer duration, though it doesn't have to be, and typically involves being directly responsible for the oversight or implementation of a program or management of an organization, or directly supporting the person doing so. These engagements are typically for the purpose of accomplishing an ambitious agenda or new program that requires creative problem-solving, outside expertise, structured management, original research, detailed budget/funding evaluation, or other more "technical" work products. Examples of this work include my time as mayor and emergency management coordinator for the Township of South Orange Village, Program Director for Pathways for America, Borough Administrator for the Borough of Leonia, Business Administrator for the City of Lambertville, or founder and managing partner of Veracity Media. |
Find several examples of what this type of work can be below:
| As the Public Information and Engagement Consulting Program Manager at Sustainable Jersey, I re-designed and successfully implemented a technical assistance grant program that helps provide municipalities with a customized strategic plan to help improve their communications and public engagement towards better local policy goals. |
| As Business Administrator in Lambertville, I reversed years of runaway capital spending that was driving the community into significant debt and began to implement a new plan that set transparent and achievable financial milestones towards a healthier future. This included creating an entirely new annual budgeting process from scratch, cutting new debt authorized by over 90% in the first year, reigning in professional service fees, performing the City's first facility and capital analysis, and identifying a facility management and redevelopment plan that if implemented, would save each average assessed household over $2,000 in the coming six years. This plan also solves years of expensive and litigious activity with the City's prior affordable housing plans by incorporating a new plan to build affordable units faster and better, which was approved by Fair Share and the Court. |
| As an adjunct professor in Seton Hall's Master of Public Administration program, I help students develop their ability to make thoughtful, intentional, long-term strategic decisions that help move them closer to accomplishing their goals. |
| As the Consulting Program Director at Run for America, I lead a small team to comprehensively research, re-design, and implement a nationwide bipartisan leadership development and civic engagement program that helped better meet the goals of the organization (Run for America). We created a program built on inter-disciplinary scientific research that allowed us to engage program participants in a way that helped develop their internal motivation and confidence towards greater civic impact. Learn a little more about the innovative Pathways Program here and here. |
| As Borough Administrator in Leonia, I helped rectify years of noncompliance with the Borough's Court facility by identifying a shared service opportunity that met all goals at 30% less cost than previous options, as part of a comprehensive facility/redevelopment plan that would save Leonia taxpayers over $2 million in the first year alone. This holistic plan, involving the Borough's facilities, affordable housing obligations, and downtown corridor would create the economic development infrastructure to take advantage of the upcoming potential light rail expansion in Bergen County. |
| As Mayor in South Orange, I released five years of account-level budget data in a visual data tool and spreadsheets, provided significant new public information and engagement opportunities, and allowed the community to engage in the Village's budget (and other areas) in a way never possible before, such that future decisions can be made with all constituencies as informed and engaged as possible. We successfully moved green redevelopment projects forward that helped us meet affordable housing goals and generated significant new revenue that we used to help stabilize taxes. Learn more about my time in South Orange here. |
| As the Founder of Veracity Media LLC, I helped build a consulting company from the ground up that focused on providing mostly smaller nonprofit and political campaigns the ability to better communicate and engage with their audiences better so they could maximize their impact in the areas they care most about. Without investor funding, we grew a one-person operation into a highly competitive consulting company in a space often dominated by larger players. |