A Bit About Us

Welcome to Schneider McLaughlin’s inaugural blog.

Of all the communications we’ve written as partners to date, this has been one of the most exciting and challenging: we both have so much we want to explore, discuss, and debate about the sector, it’s been tough to bear in mind that our blog will allow us to tackle all of our thoughts and perspectives in good time. So, we agreed that as an introduction, we would simply answer the question: “What do we most want people to know about us as a company?”.

We have a 3-part answer.

First, this company is rooted in a deep respect for the voluntary sector and a desire to address the challenges it faces. Through our respective careers and volunteer activities, we have served on the front lines in non-profit organizations and well know the inherent struggles that come with providing first-rate programs and services while simultaneously making payroll and keeping the lights on. We intimately know the responsibilities and expectations that are attached to both board and staff roles and appreciate the challenge of gelling those roles to maximum effectiveness. We strongly believe in the critical importance of the sector as a counter-balance to purely profit-driven agendas and our overarching goal, therefore, is to apply innovative thinking to help organizations build resiliency, capacity, and sustainability as a means of strengthening the sector as a whole.

Second, we don’t believe there is anything simple about the non-profit sector or its member organizations. In fact, we think both are extremely complex systems comprised of a myriad of intertwined relationships: between and among board and staff; between funders and beneficiaries; between government and non-profits; between the private and non-profit sectors; and among non-profit agencies themselves. Therefore, the answers to strategic questions are always necessarily multi-faceted. Even within organizations, we believe that effectiveness is found in understanding the relationships between the various organizational components: between marketing, fundraising, program development, human resources, and finance. No one component will stand on its own or hold sole responsibility for an organization’s successes or failures. Our strategic approach always bears these complexities in mind.

Third, our partnership is built on both strong, complementary synergies and bringing our respective backgrounds and personalities into our work with clients. We have decades of individual experience in the issues we’re advising on: Chris in policy, governance, research, evaluation, and strategic management; and Corrie in marketing, fundraising, communications, strategic planning, and fiscal management. And, the great part is we like working together: our unique backgrounds and perspectives allow us to challenge each other, enhance our thought processes, and provide thoughtful, multi-faceted analysis to our clients. Our goal is to bring the creative, exciting, forward-thinking dialogue and debate that happens in our office to our client organizations: we believe it’s what makes us an impactful partner in helping to build effective and resilient non-profit organizations.

Over the life of our blog, we want to raise and address critical issues to the sector and discuss the topics on peoples’ minds. We hope you’ll follow its progression and become an important part of the dialogue. We await your feedback and suggestions and we definitely look forward to hearing and discussing the ideas that will inspire social innovation and bring about meaningful change.

Chris and Corrie