<aside> <img src="/icons/close_gray.svg" alt="/icons/close_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Bridgespan has completed its work with Fast Forward’s latest cohort. Stay tuned for an update later in 2025 about future engagements. Questions can be directed to Akshay (Slack or [email protected]).

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Overview

Bridgespan is a consultancy firm that helps nonprofits grow and scale their impact. Alumni will work with Bridgespan to develop a growth planning strategy. Bridgespan will work closely with your organization’s leadership team to develop a comprehensive strategy plan that is ripe for growth and maximizing impact. This is a time-intensive exercise that requires a lot of buy-in from leadership but results in a robust plan that provides a lot of benefits and results. Here is a one-pager with more details.

Benefits of Participating

You will leave the program with a very strong strategy plan that will help enable your organization’s growth and impact. Teams who go through this process rave about the results (Fast Forward has also done it and we love our strategy plan!)

Applicant Criteria

Teams that apply to this program should hit most of the following criteria:

• ~$1 million in annual budget (we find that below this threshold is too early for this type of growth planning).
• Have a leadership team of 2-6 people: you may not have officially designated an executive team for your organization, but in order to participate in this process you will need 2-6 senior leaders who can participate with you.
• Organization not currently participating in the Startup Accelerator.
• Organization who do not expect major leadership transitions in the next year (e.g., if you know that you have major team changes in the near future, now is probably not a great time to participate)

Typical Engagement

Each team will meet bi-weekly for 2-3 hours/week over the course of 5 months. You will be expected to complete work in between the sessions. The teams that are fully bought into this process see the best results.

Example of output: Fast Forward’s Strategic Plan

Cost to Participate

This program is valued at $100K. Fast Forward will cover 90% of the fees and each team is expected to contribute the remaining $10K.

Application Process

We will release an application when we are onboarding the next growth planning cohort. If selected to move forward, there will be a short video call with the Bridgespan team as well. Questions can be directed to Akshay (Slack or [email protected]).