Discover
Assess the foundation
Inventoried what existed, what was missing, and what the funding timeline required. Produced a prioritized gap list rather than an undifferentiated checklist.
Nonprofit Start-Up
From Determination Letter to Fundable Organization.
A newly recognized nonprofit with a committed founder, a strong idea, and none of the structure a funder checks for. The engagement built the foundation before the first application.
Representative Engagement
This is a representative engagement — an illustrative profile showing how this CAMPBELL engagement works, what it produces, and the kind of change it creates. It is composed to demonstrate our methodology and does not describe a specific client or report a specific organization’s results.
The Situation
What Was Actually Happening.
The founder had incorporated, secured a determination letter, and recruited five board members, most of whom were friends and supporters without prior nonprofit board experience.
Bylaws had been adopted from a template nobody had read closely. There was no conflict of interest policy, no chart of accounts, and no separation between the founder's personal funds and the organization's. Board meetings happened when there was something to discuss.
A local funder had expressed interest and asked for documents the organization could not produce.
The CAMPBELL Organizational Performance Diagnostic™Dimensions where this engagement found the problem
Strategy & DirectionGovernance & DecisionsPeople & CapacityPrograms / ServicesOperations & ProcessPerformance & DataSustainability & Scale
Our Approach
How We Worked It.
Every CAMPBELL engagement is delivered through the CAMPBELL 6D Method™ — Discover, Define, Design, Deliver, Demonstrate, Drive. Each step below is tagged with the phase it belongs to.
Design
Build governance
Reviewed and revised the bylaws so the board understood what it had adopted. Defined officer roles and committee structure, adopted a conflict of interest policy with annual disclosures, and established a meeting and decision cadence.
Design
Build financial infrastructure
Established a chart of accounts, documented financial policies and approval thresholds, implemented separation of duties across authorization, disbursement, and reconciliation, and built a board-approved operating budget.
Design
Build the compliance system
Identified every registration, filing, and reporting obligation, assigned each an owner, and built a compliance calendar with lead times — including the annual renewals that new organizations most often miss.
Deliver
Prepare for funding
Assembled the organizational documentation packet a funder requires and developed the capacity narrative to accompany program proposals.
Drive
Reduce founder dependency
Documented core procedures and cross-trained board and staff so that no single function routed exclusively through the founder.
The CAMPBELL Model™Where this engagement sat in our problem-solving framework
ClarifyAssessMapPrioritizeBuildExecuteLinkLearn
A start-up engagement is the Diagnostic™ applied to an organization that does not yet have performance history — the seven dimensions become a build specification rather than an assessment of what exists.
Deliverables
What the Organization Received.
- Governance gap assessment
- Revised bylaws and defined board and officer roles
- Conflict of interest policy with disclosure process
- Financial policies, procedures, and approval thresholds
- Chart of accounts and internal control structure
- Board-approved operating budget
- Compliance calendar with assigned owners
- Funder-ready organizational documentation packet
- Documented core operating procedures
The Outcome
What Changed.
Illustrative of the change this engagement is designed to produce.
A board that understood its role
Board members could describe what they were responsible for and what belonged to staff, which changed how meetings ran.
Financial separation and real controls
Personal and organizational funds were fully separated, with documented approval thresholds and separation of duties in place before the first significant grant.
Nothing missed on the compliance calendar
Every filing obligation had a named owner and a lead-time reminder, including the state registration renewal.
Ready when the opportunity came
The documentation packet meant the next funder request was answered in a day rather than triggering a scramble.
Free Consultation
Does this sound like your organization?
If you recognised your own situation here, let’s talk about it. A consultation is free, carries no obligation, and starts where every CAMPBELL engagement starts — with finding out what is actually wrong.