Services
Practical strategy for organizations doing important work.
HMH Creative Consulting helps arts organizations and mission-driven nonprofits strengthen the systems behind their mission. Whether you’re growing quickly, navigating leadership change, rebuilding a budget, looking for new income streams or simply trying to make the organization work better, we help turn complexity into a practical path forward.
Not sure what you need? Start with an Organization Checkup.
Fractional Arts Executive
Ideal for: small and mid-sized arts organizations that need experienced executive-level leadership without adding a full-time position.
Includes:
- Weekly leadership meetings
- Board support
- Fundraising coaching
- Strategic planning
- Grant strategy
- Problem-solving and accountability
Investment:
- 4 hours/month: $750–$1,000
- 8 hours/month: $1,500–$2,000
- 16 hours/month: $3,000–$4,000
- Interim leadership: $5,000–$10,000/month
Investment depending on scope and level of involvement.
Organization Checkup
Diagnoses what needs attention.
Ideal for: Organizations feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or uncertain about next steps.
Includes:
- Review of financials
- Board governance assessment
- Development/fundraising review
- Program evaluation
- Stakeholder interviews (ED, Board Chair, key staff)
- Written findings report
- 90-day action plan
Investment:
$2,500–$5,000
Strategic Reset
Bring your leadership and board together to decide where the organization is going and build the plan to get there.
Ideal for: Organizations facing a major transition, staffing changes, declining revenue, or a changing environment.
Includes:
- Organizational assessment
- Board retreat facilitation
- Strategic planning process
- Vision, goals, and action steps
- Fundraising recommendations
- Final strategic plan document
Investment:
$6,000–$15,000
Transition Support
Ideal for: Organizations facing founder retirement, executive departure, Board crisis, organizational restructuring
Every transition engagement is customized. Support may include:
- Transition planning
- Board coaching
- Interim leadership support
- Stakeholder communication
- Staff transition guidance
- Executive search support
Investment:
$5,000–$25,000+
Arts Organizations
Capacity-Strained Creators
The season announcement looked incredible. Ticket sales are trending up. Your education programs are growing. The board is excited. From the outside, everything appears to be thriving.
Inside the organization, however, the same three people are wearing twelve different hats. Grant deadlines are approaching, class schedules live in multiple spreadsheets, and every new opportunity feels both exciting and overwhelming. You know there is potential for growth, but you’re not sure whether your current systems can support it.
Perhaps you’re a dance company adding community programs, a theater expanding its education offerings, or a museum trying to balance exhibitions, fundraising, and audience development. The artistic vision is clear—the path to sustaining it is not.
Through Program Development & Sustainability, Strategic & Operational Planning, and Budgeting & Financial Planning, we’ll build the structure behind the creativity so your organization can grow without burning out the people who make the work possible.
Learn More →
Mission-Driven Community Service OrganizationsUnder-Resourced Stabilizers
Every morning, your team arrives ready to solve problems that matter. Families need support. Seniors need services. Animals need homes. Neighbors need resources. The work is urgent, meaningful, and never-ending.
Over time, programs have been added because the community needed them. Staff members have taken on additional responsibilities because someone had to. Budgets have been stretched to cover one more initiative, one more partnership, one more way to serve.
Now you’re finding it harder to answer questions like: Which programs have the greatest impact? Are we staffed appropriately for what we’re trying to accomplish? How do we make sure today’s solutions don’t create tomorrow’s challenges?
You don’t need someone to tell you how to fulfill your mission—you do that every day. You need a partner who can help align resources, priorities, and planning.
Together, through Strategic & Operational Planning, Budgeting & Financial Planning, and Program Development & Sustainability, we’ll create a stronger foundation so your organization can continue doing the work your community depends on.
Learn More →
Organizations in TransitionNavigating Change with Purpose
For years, everything worked because a handful of dedicated people knew exactly how to make it work. Then something changed.
Perhaps a longtime executive director retired. A key staff member left. Your organization purchased a building, completed a capital campaign, expanded into new programs, or simply outgrew the systems that carried you this far.
Now decisions that once felt straightforward seem more complicated. Institutional knowledge lives in people’s heads instead of documented processes. Staff members are unsure who owns what. The board is asking important questions about the future, but there isn’t a clear roadmap yet.
Transitions can be exciting, but they can also expose weaknesses that have been hidden by years of hard work and goodwill.
This is where thoughtful planning makes all the difference. Through Strategic & Operational Planning, Budgeting & Financial Planning, and Program Development & Sustainability, we’ll identify what needs to be preserved, what needs to evolve, and how to move forward with confidence.
The goal isn’t simply to survive change—it’s to use it as an opportunity to build a stronger, more sustainable organization for the future.
Learn More →
Need help with something more specific?
Budgeting & Financial Planning
- Multi-year budget modeling
- Cash-flow analysis
- Scenario planning
Strategic & Operational Planning
- Strategic priorities and goal setting
- Organizational structure and staffing
- Program and resource alignment
- Implementation roadmaps
- Board and staff accountability systems
- Decision-making processes
Program Development & Sustainability
- Program design
- Grant-ready budgets
- Implementation plans and metrics
- Logic models/evaluation frameworks
Strategy informed by actually doing the work.
HMH Creative Consulting brings two decades of nonprofit arts leadership to every engagement. This is not strategy developed only from spreadsheets and boardrooms—it is grounded in the realities of managing staff, balancing budgets, growing programs, raising money, working with boards, purchasing facilities, and keeping an artistic mission moving forward at the same time.