As a leader of a social enterprise, you've undoubtedly been called upon to prove your impact, do more with less, grow capabilities but not overhead, and ensure that your program dollars are being well spent. These are the challenges that Ascendant tackles on a daily basis.

We're social entrepreneurs focused exclusively on helping mission-driven organizations achieve their mission more rapidly, effectively, and measurably. With extensive experience in performance management, we help organizations of all sizes to:

1. Prove impact to stakeholders and donors
2. Increase leadership and management effectiveness
3. Develop organizational capacity for growth
4. Align strategic and operational goals and projects

...allowing leadership teams to make decisions, manage board expectations, justify budgets, align resources with strategy and report results to stakeholders.

Prove impact to stakeholders and donors

Prove it. You entered this space to make a difference, and undoubtedly you are doing so. But can you prove it? Do you have a reliable measurement system in place that proves your impact to your donors, your board, your employees, and your customers? What measures resonate with your funders, and what measures help you understand if you're making the right decisions? We help organizations develop and deploy measurement systems that encourage the right behavior and tell the story of your strategy.

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Increase leadership and management effectiveness

Do you have the right people doing the right jobs? Are you sure? Are you getting as much out of your leadership team as you could, or are you shouldering more of the burden than you should? Do people understand how what they're doing on a daily basis contributes to the overall success of your organization? Getting your organization aligned around a your strategy is critical to your success. We help organizations develop performance management systems that ensure there is alignment from the board member all the way through to the front-line volunteer.

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Develop organizational capacity for growth

It's a paradox: You need to grow your infrastructure in order to improve the amount and quality of the services you deliver, but your funders want all of their capital to go to programs, not "overhead." How do you develop the organizational capacity for growth if your overhead is constrained? How do you show the link between organizational capacity and program delivery? We help organizations develop the cause and effect "strategy map" of their organization to show how unrestricted donations are put to use.

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Align strategic and operational goals and projects

What's strategic? What's tactical? What's a special project and what's business as usual? Where should we invest for growth, and where should we pull back? When should we partner and when should we go it alone? Without a clear understanding of your strategy and your portfolio of projects, these questions are almost unanswerable. We help organizations get control over their project portfolios so that they can make rational and unemotional decisions about what should be funded this year, what can be deferred, and what is not strategic.

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