Organizational Sustainability

Our Work

Education executives face unprecedented challenges to their sustainability and impact — challenges that require skill and experience to navigate. Bellwether helps organizational leaders and boards surface and evaluate options, make decisions, and execute effectively in high-stakes circumstances.

We bring expertise, capacity, and objectivity to our clients — partnering to assess and improve financial health, evolve organizational structures, right-size their footprints, evaluate strategic partners, and execute successful mergers. We have deep experience leading through change, helping organizations address challenges, and navigating major transitions with an eye toward long-term impact and sustainability.

Our Impact

Bellwether and Education Board Partners (EBP): In addition to our extensive work with clients, Bellwether has directly navigated organizational change through our merger with EBP in 2023. EBP was a leading nonprofit that helped education organizations improve their boards in service of improved outcomes for students. But after 11 years of operation, EBP’s future felt uncertain, as scaling its work to serve more schools while finding a sustainable business model proved challenging. Bellwether, with our similar student-centered mission, understood the importance of strong boards, but lacked internal expertise in governance. As EBP considered its options — including sunsetting or merging with a mission-aligned nonprofit — Bellwether saw an opportunity to bring that expertise in-house and gain an important body of work without building it from scratch. As a result, Bellwether integrated EBP into its organization and added critical expertise — and EBP founder Carrie Chimerine Irvin — to its team of experts.

Charter School Growth Fund Merger Toolkit: Bellwether partnered with Charter School Growth Fund to explore charter sector mergers. Our work began with in-depth research on three focus regions — New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York City — to better understand the history of charter mergers in those areas and the environmental and charter-specific factors that have shaped the region. We explored both traditional mergers, which involve two or more charters combining into one, and restarts, which involve one charter taking ownership of another. Our team also evaluated nine additional regions across the country against environmental factors that enable or inhibit charter mergers. From this work, we developed an extensive set of toolkits to support charter or charter management organization (CMO) leaders considering or pursuing mergers. The entire body of work was informed by interviews with a range of leaders across the sector, including charter and CMO leaders who have experienced mergers, leaders of city-based intermediaries, and others. These materials serve as a key resource for leaders across the country considering a charter sector merger or restart.

DC Association of Chartered Public Schools and Friends of Choice in Urban Schools DC (FOCUS DC): Bellwether partnered with the DC Association of Chartered Public Schools and FOCUS DC to support a merger. Bellwether worked with both organizations to determine what roles they could play moving forward and to address their key question: What does effective advocacy look like for supporting and sustaining a healthy ecosystem for charters in the District of Columbia? Over the course of our work, we engages nearly 65 stakeholders (including school leaders, funders, politicians, and authorizers); conducted national benchmarking research; planned and hosted focus groups; and facilitated regular briefings for the governing bodies to establish a forward-looking recommendation of merging the two organizations. This ultimately led to a “merger of equals” with a resulting new organization. Our plan for the new organization identified foundational activities, including advocacy, political influence, school support, and equitable representation. It also defined a forward-looking organizational strategy and financial model, including a detailed plan for implementation over 18 months. The plan also helped the organization secure long-term financial support from a collaborative of philanthropic funders.

Achieve Community Charter School and People’s Prep Charter School: From March through October 2022, Bellwether facilitated the exploration of a potential merger between Achieve Community Charter School (Achieve, part of the BRICK Education Network) and People’s Preparatory Charter School (People’s Prep), both located in Newark, New Jersey. The project’s goals were twofold: to decide whether to pursue a merger, and, if so, to draft a merger memorandum of understanding (MOU) for approval by both schools’ boards in advance of applying to an authorizer in late 2022. As a result of the project, Achieve and People’s Prep entered into a preliminary agreement to create a merged entity that serves K-12 students in Newark. Bellwether conducted an initial compatibility assessment for both schools, identified areas in need of further due diligence, and helped each school’s leaders draft an MOU outlining proposed terms of agreement in these areas.

Charter Network Board Post-Merger Support: Bellwether supported the board of a large charter network following the merger of two smaller networks into a single local education agency with more than a dozen schools. We designed and facilitated a multi-day retreat for the merged board to reset expectations, align on mission and goals, address differences in board culture and practice between the two boards, and resolve lingering questions between the two merging organizations. The retreat gave the CEO of the merged organization a chance to articulate what support they need from the board, share their working style and communication preferences, and establish lines of communication with and within the board. The merger was executed successfully and the new CEO has remained in place, working productively with the merged board.

Our Team

Evan Coughenour
Partner

Colleen Campbell
Senior Associate Partner

Carrie Chimerine Irvin
Executive Adviser

Rebecca Gifford Goldberg
Managing Partner

Lauren Miller
Partner

Juliet Squire
Senior Partner and Head of Emerging Approaches

Christine Wade
Senior Associate Partner