How Can We Help?

Strategy driven. People powered. Change minded.

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We are an engagement strategy and evaluation firm committed to building healthy, just, and equitable communities.

Our Services

Engagement Strategy

Strategy, Program and Campaign Design

Strategic Planning

Landscape Research and Assessments

Our clients are impatient for justice and equitable communities. So are we.

Grassroots Solutions answers that impatience with a purpose-built practice that’s grounded in our first-hand knowledge of civic engagement and power building.

Three factors define our approach:

We know how to get stuff done

Deep knowledge of our practice areas—the landscapes, players, funders and levers—means our clients can be incisive in how they shape and achieve their visions. 

We’re able to support clients as they build thriving organizations, programs and power because we’ve been in those leadership positions ourselves.

National perspective, state strength

Grassroots Solutions knows how to build power and leadership in states because we’ve done it. Being strategically located across the US—along with our experience in DC—offers tremendous advantages to our clients.

We’re not afraid of hard

Sometimes the hard conversation is the right one. We progress with our clients through complex problems and environments to find equitable and effective approaches that meet their goals. 

Purposeful Evaluation

Program and Strategy Evaluation

Organizational Capacity Assessment

Landscape Research and Assessment

Strategy Design

In our hands, evaluation is purposeful.

It is leverage that unsticks people and programs when facing complex social problems. It supports building community power and tackling oppression.

Inclusivity

We collect and analyze data collaboratively, use straightforward language, and strive to ensure those effecting—and those affected by—the program being evaluated are centered.

Practitioner’s fluency

We know how to design and execute a campaign, run an advocacy organization, and navigate complex social problems. In other words, we’ve done the work we’re evaluating.

Strategic learning

Our work sits at the intersection of strategy, learning and evaluation where each of the three facets fuels the others, amplifying our clients’ impact.

Comfort with complexity

Progress often happens in spaces that are new or evolving, where there’s not an abundance of proven models. These are the moments where we’re frequently called in when a matter is complex and dynamic. 

Coaching & Advising

Emerging and Existing Leaders

Individual and Institutional Philanthropists

As an outgrowth of our work in Evaluation and Engagement Strategy, we work with select clients in an advisory role. 

Being invited to advise or coach is a privilege. Here’s a view into our offerings. 

One-to-One Coaching

Provides an independent, confidential ear to listen, decipher and problem-solve with individual leaders to help them be most effective in their work-lives and organizations. We approach the role as a simpatico, seasoned and expert peer for those who often have limited outlets for such important conversations.

Ongoing Strategic Advising

Typically advisor-to-leadership team: the advisor, an issue expert who knows the landscape intimately, serves as an objective partner outside the organization’s day-to-day. We enable leadership to cut to the chase at key strategic points, so the organization moves more seamlessly, expeditiously and effectively.

Donor Advising

A natural outgrowth of career-long involvement in our practice areas. We know what work needs to be done, and where funding would be the lever that will effect the transformative good our clients envision. Matching donors to need is among the most gratifying work we do.

Our Practice Areas

Committed to building healthy, just and equitable communities, we also have three specialty Practice Areas: Healthy Democracy, Economic Justice & Climate Crisis.

To each, we bring passion and knowledge of the landscapes, players, funding and the levers by which change happens.
For all, we’re grounded in the understanding and dismantling of systems of racism, gender inequity and oppression.
Healthy Democracy

We have yet to realize the promise of a truly healthy and equitable democracy, particularly for people of color and the economically disadvantaged. Through our work in civic engagement and community power building, we expand the circle of participation and foster systemic reform to allow historically excluded communities to have a powerful voice in our democracy.

Climate Crisis

Climate crisis is an existential threat whose impact is unfairly shouldered by frontline communities. While the climate crisis affects everyone, our vigilance focuses action on the people most affected.

Economic Justice

We recognize that economic inequality is the result of policy choices, disproportionately impacting low-income neighborhoods, women and communities of color. We seek to alleviate structural barriers, building a more equitable future for everyone. 

An open invitation

We’re inspired by big ideas and complex challenges, and welcome inquiries on all topics. Let’s have a conversation about your needs and how we could best support you.

Our Experience

We’re proud of who we partner with.

Our clients are at the vanguard of social change. With them, we share values, mission and a bias toward action.

Additional Clients
America Votes American Wind Energy Association Atlantic Philanthropies Better School Better Jobs Mississippi BlueGreen Alliance Center for American Progress Center for Community Change Conservation Minnesota Energy Foundation Democracy Alliance Democracy Fund Detroit Future City Ford Foundation Foundation for Civic Leadership Freedom to Marry Hewlett Foundation Human Rights Campaign - Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights League of Conservation Voters Liberal Party of Canada MacArthur Foundation McKnight Foundation Minnesota Council on Foundations - Census Mobilization Partnership Minnesotans United for All Families MOVE Texas National Audubon Society National Education Association NEO Philanthropy Ohio Fair Minimum Wage Perspective Fund Pew Charitable Trusts Planned Parenthood Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Rockefeller Foundation SEIU State Infrastructure Fund State Voices Texas Civil Rights Projects The Nature Conservancy Tina Smith for US Senate Union of Concerned Scientists Wellstone for Senate Youth Engagement Fund
Featured Insights

Learn more about what we do and how we think.

  1. this Anne Johnson

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    Now Hiring: Senior Strategist – Evaluation

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  4. Democracy Illustration
    this Democracy

    Building Power From The Ground Up

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    Evaluating Power Building: A Paradigm Shift for Evaluators

Case Studies & Articles

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