"The Board came in scattered, and we left focused."

"Laura's work with us at the HadaNou Collective (HNC) over the past year has been game changing. Her clear-mindedness, orientation towards clarity and organization, and thoughtful questioning has helped us through a critical time of organizational growth and change. HNC would not be in nearly as great of a position as we are now had we not worked with Laura on strategic planning over the past many months!"

                                   - Nathan Pai Schmitt, Cofounder and Executive Director, The HadaNou Collective

"It was an absolute pleasure working with Laura Noonan over the course of a little over year on Montessori Academy of Colorado's board market research and strategic planning projects. She provided a structured process for gathering feedback that utilized a combination of in person workshops, surveys, focus groups, and virtual meetings, giving a chance for everyone to engage despite tight schedules. She also offered effective synthesis of feedback that allowed us to iterate without spinning our wheels. And finally, her management of our stakeholders was impressive - there were a lot of opinions and interests in the room and Laura elegantly navigated those dynamics, pushing the work forward according to the original project timeline without offending anyone. The final result was an evidence-based strategic plan that had the buy-in and support of the board, admin staff, and the broader school community. Everything we had hoped for. I would hire Laura again in a heartbeat and would highly recommend her to anyone looking for this type of support." 

                                                                - June Marcel, Board Member, Montessori Academy of Colorado

"Laura Noonan Consulting led us through nearly a year-long strategic planning process that has been transformative for us. It brought together stakeholders from across our organization to reflect on our work and to think about where we can be most impactful in the future. Laura and the team challenged us to ask difficult questions of ourselves while still allowing our vision and mission to drive the process. We came out of the strategic planning engagement not only with more organizational unity than before, but also a clear plan for the future. We also received detailed tools and templates that will enable us to hold ourselves accountable and keep our strategic goals actionable. Even in just the first few weeks after the project, the strategic plan that they helped us to create has been effective in helping us to attract new donors and long-term supporters. I highly recommend them!"

                                                     - Tyler Spencer, Founder and Executive Director, The Grassroot Project

" MESA USA's engagement with Laura Noonan Consulting yielded tremendous benefits for us as a fledgling national organization with an ambitious strategic agenda. Laura's ability to quickly gain a rich understanding of MESA's long history, our commonalities across all member states, as well as the key differences was a critical factor in the successful execution of our strategic planning process. Laura was well-prepared, patient, and intelligently flexible in her work with us as clients. She anticipated key challenges and questions and provided subtle coaching for our organization's leadership which made for a very positive and productive engagement. I would have no qualms about recommending Laura Noonan Consulting to other organizations. "

                                   -  Thomas Ahn, Board Member, MESA USA  and Director, California MESA

"Laura Noonan Consulting helped me articulate the questions I needed to ask, the data I needed to consider, and how to put that together to find paths forward for the organization. Her work on our behalf was comprehensive, thorough, articulate, and insightful. Additionally, Laura was a pleasure to work with. She was timely, communicative, and very responsive."

                                                                                             - Cheryl Miller, President and CEO, RMC Health

"Our organization is working to formalize our national structure. This isn't an easy task since we are multiple states with independent needs and programs. All states have an equal power in how we move forward in creating our structure but our large group has to make extra time to work on how we formalize our national structure. Engaging Laura in the process of helping us create a strategic framework was invaluable. She was able to quickly grasp the complexity of our needs, our communication style and our organization's values. Laura integrated these aspects into guiding us through the strategic planning process. We now have a road map for our future work that all states support. "

                                   -  Ling Faith-Heuertz, Board Member, MESA USA  and Director, New Mexico MESA

"Laura is an innovative and skilled facilitator.  Under a tight timeline, she organized a thoughtful facilitation related to an education improvement challenge. The group liked her approach linked to design-thinking and human-centered design.  Her facilitation generated the needed content to re-vision the future of a state education program."

                                                                  - Judith Martinez, Director of Dropout Prevention and Student Re-engagement, Colorado Department of Education

"[The Laura Noonan Consulting team] were wonderful partners for the National Alliance during our strategic planning process. Their focus on stakeholder research provided critical insights to guide our work. Laura's attention to detail and collaborative approach to planning was the perfect fit for our retreat. She worked beautifully with the team and ensured we stayed on task, meeting our strategic planning goals."

                - Betsy McFarland, Leadership Team Facilitator, National Alliance for Volunteer Engagement

" Laura Noonan Consulting was exactly what our organization needed for its first formal strategic planning process. She worked with us to devise a process that respected our limited budget and accomplished the goals we set out to achieve. It was not possible for our board members and staff to convene for an all- or multiple- day meeting; Laura worked with us to devise a way to reach the same level of engagement primarily asynchronously. She kept us to our deadlines in a disciplined way but also with grace, without shutting down or dismissing important comments and feedback in the name of time. She is also a skilled listener and facilitator. It is difficult to evaluate consultant proposals and have the certainty that you picked correctly on the front end; we are so grateful to have landed on Laura!"

                                                              - Laura Brown, Executive Director, First Shift Justice Project