STRATEGY | EVALUATION | LEARNING
From Intent to Impact
I work with teams in and across education, philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations to connect direction, data, and decisions.
WHO YOU’D BE WORKING WITH
I’m Kathleen Lis Dean. I’ve spent 30 years working in and with the organizations I now advise - colleges and universities, foundations, and nonprofit organizations.
In my work with leadership teams, program officers, faculty colleagues, PIs, project managers, executive directors, and boards, I have seen that the hard part of organizational work is rarely the data. It’s building consensus around the goal and making time to engage in intentional, data-informed decision making.
I earned my Ph.D. studying boundary spanning in leadership teams. In other words, how people from different corners of an organization can leverage their expertise to inform strategy and achieve organizational goals. This framework continues to shape how I think about systems, the social life of information, and collaborative decision-making.
HOW I WORK
Together we build consensus on what you're trying to achieve, decide what evidence you need, and take time to work through what it means for the decisions in front of you.
Facilitated conversations, evaluation design and analysis, strategic planning, board and leadership retreats, community engagement — whatever form it takes, we start with the questions you need answered.
Planning Processes · Evaluation Projects ·
Meetings & Retreats · Workshops
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WORK
Let’s have a conversation - with you, or with whoever else from your team needs to be in it - and talk about your goals.