Services

Finally, language for the financial challenge you've been trying to name.

The Financial Forest framework classifies organizations into seven empirically derived financial archetypes. What often presents as a unique financial challenge is a structural pattern the data can identify precisely. These services bring that clarity to nonprofit leaders and the institutional funders who invest in them. Most engagements begin with an Orientation.

For Nonprofit Leaders

From financial awareness to financial leadership.

Executive directors and senior leaders use the Financial Forest framework to understand where their organization sits relative to peers that actually resemble it. Engagements move from orientation through board presentations and a research-grade financial health brief; the six-month Heartwood Advisory supports leaders ready to take full ownership of their financial strategy.

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For Funders & Foundations

Precision about the organizations you fund.

Community foundations, community banks, hospital foundations, and other institutional funders use the Financial Forest research to understand their grantee populations with greater precision. Sponsor an orientation or workshop for the field, work directly with me on portfolio-level intelligence, or help advance the research itself.

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Feedback from our inaugural community Orientation

Participants leave with new language for a problem they navigate every day.

100%

Valuable use of time

Every participant rated the session 4 or 5 out of 5.

100%

Facilitation quality

Every participant rated the facilitation 4 or 5 out of 5.

88%

Motivated to take action

Nearly every respondent rated their motivation to act 4 or 5 out of 5.

81%

New ideas or resources

Most respondents identified new ideas or resources to apply to their work.

"
Nicole is so competent and really sparked my curiosity about financial health of nonprofits. The addition of small group conversations was so rich — we all built on the themes expressed. Takeaway: Do not be ashamed of your archetype, be informed and strategic to leverage your strengths and find partners to lessen the stress a bit.

— Debbie Sagen

Chair, ChangeLine Board of Directors
Principal, Deborah Sagen & Associates
Leadership Coach, Center for Creative Leadership

For Nonprofit Leaders

Understanding your position on its own terms.

Executive directors and senior leaders use the Financial Forest framework to see the financial engine their organization actually runs on. That understanding is what makes a fundraising strategy targeted and strategic: built around how your specific model raises and sustains money, rather than measured against the untested industry norms the sector repeats as universal rules. Engagements range from a single session with your board to a six-month advisory relationship.

Orientation

A 90-minute introduction to the Financial Forest framework and the seven financial archetypes. You leave with a working vocabulary for the financial patterns your organization has always navigated and a clearer sense of where you sit relative to peers. Most deeper engagements begin here.

Typical entry point
Research Presentation & Facilitated Retreat

A structured session that introduces the archetype framework and situates your organization within it, delivered to your board and leadership team. The 90-minute presentation format conveys the research; half- and full-day facilitated formats add structured activities that let the team work through the findings together. Your board leaves with shared language for a conversation they may have been navigating without vocabulary. A pre-engagement consult determines the right format and focus.

Board & leadership
Bearings

The same seven-archetype framework, instrumented. Bearings generates a board-ready peer comparison curve for your own organization: your archetype, your three-year arc, and where you sit against organizations that share your business model. No scores, no traffic lights. Apply for Advisory Panel access →

Self-serve instrument
Heartwood Advisory

A strategic engagement for executive directors ready to move past financial awareness into a real discovery and fundraising strategy built around their archetype. The work starts with discovery: what your business model actually needs to sustain itself, and where the current strategy is fighting that model instead of working with it. From there, the engagement builds toward a fundraising strategy suited to your archetype, supported by a Bearings benchmark and board presentation support along the way. Offered as a focused three-month engagement or a deeper six-month relationship, depending on where you're starting. Designed for organizations that have been onboarded to the research through a Financial Forest orientation or workshop. Capacity is limited.

3- or 6-month engagement
Looking for project-based support outside the framework? See work through Segura Strategy Group ↓
Speaking Available for conference keynotes, sector convenings, and professional association events. Inquire about availability.

Every engagement begins with a conversation about where your organization is and what you are trying to do with the findings. The form takes about five minutes.

Start the conversation

Beyond the Framework

For work that starts with a question.

Evaluation design, strategic plan implementation, narrative development, facilitated sessions — project-based work for organizations and funders with a specific challenge that doesn’t fit a defined menu. These engagements run through Segura Strategy Group.

“Before Nicole, we had outcomes. With Nicole, we have evidence — the kind that moves board members and compels donors to invest.”
Anji Roe Wood Executive Director, Cherry Creek Schools Foundation
segurastrategy.com →

For Funders & Foundations

What the data reveals about the organizations you fund.

Community foundations, community banks, hospital foundations, and other institutional funders engage with the Financial Forest research to understand their grantee and portfolio populations with greater precision, and to invest in field-level capacity in ways that are grounded in how nonprofit financial health actually works.

Invest in the field
Sponsored Orientation

A funder-sponsored community orientation introducing the Financial Forest framework to a cohort of local nonprofit leaders. Grantees leave with shared language for financial conversations that are often avoided, and your institution is positioned as invested in the sector's capacity to understand itself, not only its capacity to deliver programs.

Community access
Sponsored Workshop

A deeper funder-sponsored working session for nonprofit executive directors. Where the Orientation introduces the framework, the Workshop moves into application: participants work with one or more key findings in depth through facilitated activities and structured reflection grounded in adult learning principles. Organizations leave with a practical relationship to the framework, not only familiarity with it. Co-teaching and co-facilitation arrangements with partner organizations are available.

Field investment
Work with me directly

Portfolio-level financial intelligence, by invitation.

I work directly with a small number of funders to understand their grantee population the way the research understands it: how a portfolio distributes across the seven archetypes, where financial stress concentrates, and what a giving strategy may be reinforcing or quietly working against. The same instrument behind the Financial Forest research informs the analysis. The interpretation is built around your portfolio and the questions you are actually trying to answer.

These engagements are bespoke. Capacity is limited, and held for funders building a longer relationship with the work.

Begin a conversation →
Advance the research

Become the local expert on your own market.

The Financial Forest research is a living, ongoing body of work: 1,248 organizations across ten metropolitan markets, and growing. A custom ecosystem profile, co-designed with your institution, pairs the dataset with local interviews to bring your market's financial story to life in a way no national report can. All ten current metros are open to a deeper partnership, new metros are welcome, and regional hubs get priority. The research agenda also includes a qualitative study of each of the seven archetypes nationally, examining the leadership and funder relationships that help each business model thrive.

See the research agenda →
Speaking Available for funder convenings, community foundation gatherings, and CRA officer education. Inquire about availability.

Funder engagements begin with a conversation about your portfolio, your market, and what you are trying to understand about the organizations you invest in.

Start the conversation

Looking to collaborate on a research or consulting project?

Inquire here