Services

Services

Civic Strength Partners helps you plan strategically for organizational transitions, mergers and partnerships, and protection of assets. We help preserve the value of lessons, tools, and relationships that have driven the mission and impact of civil society globally.

Here’s our 5-step process

1

CONNECT & EXPLORE

Opening the conversation and understanding your context.

Welcoming interested organizations, clarifying needs, and exploring fit through relational, trust-building dialogue.

Organizations considering a transition are invited to fill out an initial intake form, which prompts our team to reach out and schedule an intake call. Our team will talk through your questions, priorities, opportunities and needs, toward finding the best matches and resource partners.

MATCH & RECOMMEND

Deepening understanding and confirming shared intent.

Providing guided assessments and reflection to clarify goals, readiness, and alignment – followed by a shared commitment to proceed.

2

We regularly review a growing database of social change organizations exploring collaboration. Following a discovery call, we’ll assess alignment with potential partners and resources – including merger matches, technical service providers, and regional or thematic funders. Participating organizations receive a tailored follow-up with match suggestions, relevant tools or frameworks, and options for continued engagement.

3

ALIGN & COMMIT

Co-creating a tailored engagement plan.

Presenting a proposed approach based on your goals and context, confirming the scope of support, and entering into a formal partnership.

Our team provides targeted, in-depth analyses of an interested client organization’s readiness to undertake a strategic transition. CSP helps to map each client’s value proposition, critical assets, internal structures, and ecosystem relationships – and begins to help identify key enablers and risks. This may include analysis of operational, legal, financial, and cultural dimensions. Each client receives a high-level synthesis capturing insights, alignment areas, and strategic considerations for next steps.

DESIGN & BUILD

Delivering support and strengthening the broader ecosystem.

Facilitating the transition process, while also contributing tools, learning, and infrastructure for the wider field.

4

For organizations that CSP is well-positioned to help directly through a strategic transition process, our team will design and propose a customized professional services support package. This may include expert input on governance, finance, legal structure, technology, safeguarding, or external communication – alongside project management and facilitation support. The goal: ensure each client transition is values-aligned, technically sound, and sustainable. This phase centers implementation – building what’s next while preserving what matters most.

5

TRANSITION, REFLECT & COMMUNICATE

Wrapping up with intention and amplifying learning.

Supporting a thoughtful hand-off, capturing insights, and equipping partners to sustain momentum – while feeding sector-wide learning and storytelling.

While very few organizations chose this moment of dynamism, the social sector’s responses have an enormous amount to teach – both other organizations navigating similar circumstances and organizations building a more resilient future. For CSP, it’s not only critical to be able to provide direct resources and support, but to measure, share, and iteratively improve upon what we learn along the way.

For Social Change Organizations

Many social change organizations are navigating complex transitions – whether due to leadership changes, funding constraints, political pressure, or shifting mandates. These transitions are often operationally under-supported and performed under duress, leaving critical knowledge, infrastructure, and impact at risk.

Transitions, when resourced and supported well, can be opportunities for transformation and growth, not just survival. Transitions, when sudden or poorly implemented, can not only result in the loss of public knowledge, tools, and resources – but they can result in active exploitation and harm to the communities they were developed to serve.

CSP Supports:

  • Organizations considering acquisition-focused pivots or mergers
  • Organizations designing an archiving or legacy plan for unique knowledge and data products, or technical documentation
  • Organizations designing succession and sustainability strategies for technologies, datasets, or other digital assets
  • Organizations designing succession and sustainability strategies for teams, contracts, and lines of business/revenue
  • Networks and organizations considering legal, organizational, and/or digital resilience measures
  • Digital public infrastructure providers looking to build resilience, sustainability, and/or preserved accessibility for their products and/or communities
  • Organizations considering how to responsibly exit programs and communities

For Partners

As the development sector shifts and organizations transition, there is a growing number of networks that are providing communal workspaces, professional services, and infrastructure support to ease these shifts. Efforts range from amplifying strategic knowledge and advice to offering job listings and recruitment support networks. As we expand our work, we’re building a peer learning space that fosters shared knowledge and solidarity.

CSP Connects:

  • Peer organizations for mutual support
  • Thought leaders interested and invested in organizational transformation
  • Scholars, practitioners and academics tracking impacts on the development sector
  • Organizations and/or networks engaged in public health, justice, governance, security, data and technology, and human resources.

For Service Providers

Organizational transitions are complex and require a variety of expertise and resources. CSP is creating a large partner and referral network of ecosystem support partners and individuals with technical expertise that bring resources, specialist knowledge, ideas, and experience. We’d love to work with professionals who are focused on supporting high-integrity, high-impact options for aligned organizations.

CSP Engages:
  • Service providers for strategy creation and mission alignment
  • Human resources and organizational culture experts

  • Revenue and business modelling experts

  • Security, risk and resilience professionals

  • Data management and archiving support