Community Consulting Teams

Having completed their interim presentations, CCT teams are in the home stretch of their projects and developing final recommendations. Here are a few updates shared by our project managers:

No stopping this bus
Lucy’s Love Bus is a small organization with a big heart whose mission is to improve the quality of life forchildren with cancer and life-threatening illness through holistic therapies and family support programs. LLB is in need of a strategic plan and has enlisted CCT to provide a SWOT and landscape analysis which would contribute to their strategic planning process. Thanks to a dedicated team we exceeded our own expectations on the timeline for this project and the objectives agreed upon are nearly complete and were delivered to the client at the interim presentation. Our next step is to work with LLB to establish the proper questions, considerations, and frameworks to help with their strategic planning process, using what the team has learned from the SWOT and Landscape analysis.

Patients with patience
Mass Health Quality Partners (MHQP) is an organization focused on measuring the patient experience and reporting it out to federal, local, and private groups. MHQP is exploring expanding this mission and asked CCT to study the clinical trials market. The CCT team has done deep industry research including 20+ interviews, largely facilitated by tapping into each other’s MBA and professional networks! The goal is to provide the client with an overarching understanding of the industry so that MHQP can make a go/no-go entry decision. Coming out of the interim deliverable, the CCT team will focus on customer willingness to pay and deep-dive on certain segments.

Housing as mental health

RIA, an organization dedicated to walking hand-inhand in support of survivors of the commercial sex trade,is beginning to explore ways they can further support the housing needs of the population it serves. The team has developed a survey to better understand the specific needs of RIA’s population. The team has also been busy interviewing both local and national organizations that support housing through various housing models for similar populations. These two workstreams should come together to provide RIA with insight into directions they can pursue in the effort to support their participants.

Helping the crisis helpline
Samaritan’s Boston Chapter is the largest provider of suicide prevention services in Massachusetts. Theyrely heavily on volunteers to answer the thousands of calls that come in to their Crisis Helpline. The CCT team is reviewing the volunteer management process to identify improvements that will result in more calls being answered to meet higher demand. We just completed the interim presentation and shared the key issues that need to be addressed. Remaining project work includes conducting a peer review and finalizing recommendations for improvements to volunteer recruiting, screening, scheduling and retention.

If you build it, they will come
Thrive Support & Advocacy (TS&A), an organization that provides support and service navigationassistance to families of children and adults with special needs, is exploring opening a school to help older children on Individual Education Plans (IEPs). The CCT team has been interviewing stakeholders (educators, lawyers, advocates, etc.) to better understand the network of options available to these children and validate the need for a special needs school in Marlborough, where TS&A is located. Post interim presentation, the team will focus on creating a financial model to project the school’s impact and assist with developing portions of the business plan.

Taking it up a notch
Union Capital Boston plans its future direction Union Capital Boston (UCB), a Boston-area social capitalorganization, is now coming to the successful conclusion of its first three-year strategic plan. UCB has brought in CCT to lay the groundwork for its next three-year plan. Our team of exceptionally talented consultants is conducting a SWOT analysis using input from interviews with more than 40 stakeholders, including UCB community members, partners, funders, advisors, board and staff. The CCT team is also delving into quantitative survey results and conducting our analysis of the UCB member app to inform our findings. After sharing results with the UCB Board, we’re now focused on the second phase of the project.