Meet Gladiator Consulting.

Over the last nine years, Gladiator Consulting has worked with more than 100 nonprofit and government organizations locally, nationally, and globally to reimagine planning, strategy, and fund development. We seek to partner with organizations that share our desire to co-create equity, justice, and belonging within our institutions and across our communities. 

Mission: We collaborate with community leaders to advance change by leveraging an abundance of resources toward a more equitable world. 

Vision: We believe that the power of community-led initiatives will dismantle and transform systems to achieve equitable outcomes.

Our Values

We center lived experience to guide our work. Impacted communities are full of individual and collective power. While this power is not often recognized by current political and social systems, we know that our communities hold the keys to build a world full of justice, equity, and belonging. 

Change is messy. We believe that creating change is a non-linear journey that requires learning through trying and adapting to an ever-evolving environment. Embracing humility, we bring an openness to learning and unlearning as well as pursuing a balanced assessment of our contributions, acknowledging both our strengths and opportunities for growth.

We believe that equity, justice, and belonging are essential for all individuals and that culture must be purposefully shaped and maintained to support it. We work with clients and partners who are dedicated to scrutinizing power dynamics and prioritizing marginalized voices. Leaning into discomfort is a catalyst for growth, and through this process, we aim to build truly inclusive spaces that address the diverse needs of the communities we serve.

We celebrate audacious imagination. We are unapologetically courageous in taking bold risks and challenging the status quo, driven by curiosity and what could be. By embracing the unknown and pushing boundaries, we reimagine the variety of possibilities to drive meaningful change.

We are human and so are you. Our individual and collective intersecting identities play a major role in advancing our challenging work. In order for our work as movement builders to be both solid and sustainable, we must prioritize rest, kindness, honesty, vulnerability, and collective care.  

How We Work

At Gladiator Consulting, we believe that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to working with nonprofit organizations.  We take a client-centered, holistic approach that starts with a comprehensive needs analysis across our core business areas.  We work with you to understand what needs are most pressing, and many clients are surprised to find that we help them uncover a root cause of an issue that needs to be addressed, rather than wasting time and resources tackling a mere symptom of a problem.  We don’t dance around issues. We approach them head-on with brutal honesty and compassionate problem-solving.

Many consultants are most interested in their own bottom lines. We’re most interested in partnering with clients when we are passionate about their mission.  We will never take on a project just to make a profit.  

Each member of our team has a unique skill set. Together, we have decades of experience in the nonprofit sector and also bring in backgrounds from other industries. We know the problems facing our industry.

We get it.  And we’re here to help. 

Our Work

Resource Development

We embrace the principles of Community Centric Fundraising as the foundation of our resource development philosophy. By understanding, acknowledging-- and rejecting-- the opportunity to perpetuate harm via traditional relationships between donors/funders and nonprofit institutions, we seek to renegotiate power and influence in civil society.

We believe that all fundraising practices, and community members therein, should be grounded and well-versed in social justice. 

Our Resource Development services include:

  • Artifact Review +  Assessment

  • Campaign Planning + Support 

  • Development Audit and Feasibility

  • Development Plan

  • Donor Education

  • Grants Management

  • Coaching + Strategy

  • Cross-Institutional Collaboratives 

  • Individual Donor + Annual Giving Strategy

  • Marketing + Development Integration Strategy

Organizational Planning & Strategy

As Peter Drucker said, Organizational Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast. If we’re going to truly build an organization’s capacity, it starts with developing + adopting the building blocks of an intentional organizational culture.  With direction from members of your community, we will ensure your organization has a clear and compelling culture where all impacted community members have ownership in the purpose and vision. 

We can do this work with you through:

  • Scenario and Strategic Planning

  • Short-Term Priority Planning

  • Executive Coaching

  • Organizational Culture Development 

  • Communications Strategy and Execution 

  • Board Trainings and Retreats

  • Staff Training and Retreats 

  • Meeting Facilitation 

Operationalizing Equity

We help nonprofit organizations understand what historical inequities exist internally within the organization, and also their relationships with other community partners, organizations, and funders. We believe that all members (internal and external) of the organization will benefit from the organization’s transformation to a more equitable culture. We navigate the equity process with a cross-racial facilitation to find and establish a sense of belonging. 

What this work might look like:

  • Artifact Review + Baseline Assessment

  • Stakeholder Engagement via Surveys, Focus Groups, 1:1 Conversations and Other Practices

  • Facilitated Working Groups

  • Develop Equity Implementation Plan, Accountability Framework and Toolkit

  • Executive Coaching

Holistic Work

Our partnership will require both parties to take bold risks and imagine new solutions to existing problems. We want to learn collaboratively with you and sometimes our holistic approach means we will try something new together.

This could mean:

  • Reputation Management + Crisis Communication

  • Collective Impact Work

  • Visioning Sessions

  • Community Engagement

  • Data + Analytics

  • Recruiting, Hiring and Onboarding

  • Mediation or Conflict Resolution