Our Client: Points of Light
The Points of Light Veteran Leader Corps was born out of the need to engage returning veterans as leaders, not clients. More than a million veterans have come home from Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. These veterans have incredible skills and drive that can be put to use in communities. So Points of Light asked, “why not engage veterans as AmeriCorps members to help other vets find work and volunteer opportunities?”
McMahon Consulting Group worked with Points of Light to take the Veteran Leader Corps from idea to reality in three months. Building from scratch, we wrote policy handbooks and promotional materials for audiences ranging from veterans to members of Congress. We coached host sites through the process of generating opportunities for veterans. We trained both members and sites on regulations and best practices. Due in part to the smooth start-up, Veteran Leader Corps generated immediate impact, with 766 veterans receiving job-related services and 7,596 volunteering in their communities in the first year.
Our Client: Community HealthCorps
Great organizations are complex. They use expertise and intricate models to transform lives. So how do you explain this to funders, let alone regular people? As the nation’s largest health-related AmeriCorps program, Community HealthCorps faced this problem from two directions. Describing national service can be hard, but not compared to talking about improving health outcomes.
McMahon Consulting Group conducted a “communications audit” for Community HealthCorps, translating jargon into compelling language. We sifted through reports, web pages and brochures. We crunched numbers. We spoke with people who cared about the program, and we spent hundreds of hours developing and testing messages.
In the end, McMahon Consulting gave CHC the tools to increase influence and funding. Jason Patnosh, the National Director of Community HealthCorps says, “McMahon Consulting group organized our assets to build off our strengths. This allowed us to improve our branding, develop resources for our partners to talk about our impact and better tell our story.”
Our Client: FHI 360
Through FHI 360, MCG manages the Bridges to Employment program. For 19 years, MCG has worked with Johnson & Johnson and its operating companies to manage local school to career partnerships around the world. We develop externships in the STEM fields to create a triple bottom-line victory: Students receive access to college and careers, communities strengthen the local economy and companies build the workforce they need to thrive.
Our Client: Ready at Five
The skills that children develop before age five are critical to their success. For 22 years, Ready At Five has partnered with the Maryland State Department of Education and funders to transform early learning for all children in the state. Ready At Five gives a child’s first teachers-- parents and caregivers – tools to help children succeed in all domains of learning. As the state’s thought leaders on early childhood education, Ready At Five makes the business case for school readiness, engaging corporate leaders across the state.
Ready At Five engages MCG in all aspects of their operations, particularly to lead its fundraising efforts with corporations and foundations. Most importantly, each year MCG leads RA5 and MSDE’s analysis and reporting of the Maryland Model of School Readiness, a nationally recognized framework including 100% assessment of kindergartners in public schools. Since its inception in 2002, the number of children fully ready for kindergarten has increased from 49% to 83%.
Our Client: Serve Idaho
Idaho ranks third in the nation in volunteering. MCG supports Serve Idaho as a go-to group for help with planning, budget development, resource allocation and training for grantees. Director Renee Cox reports, “Working with McMahon Consulting resulted in significant time and money savings to the State of Idaho. We simplified our processes, improved our capacity and became a more efficient office. Cole coached me on how to make Serve Idaho’s budget and Unified State Plan more efficient. Consultants give all kinds of advice, but Cole’s was spot-on and produced results we could see within days of implementation.”
Our Client: LISC
LISC AmeriCorps members transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy communities. Members change lives by developing affordable housing, teaching financial literacy and supporting young people. When they need a trainer, LISC AmeriCorps calls on MCG. In the last ten years, MCG trainers have designed and delivered trainings on Team Building, AmeriCorps Ambassadorship, Community Asset Mapping and Time Management.
Our Client: Rebuilding Together
For 25 years, Rebuilding Together has repaired and renovated homes for low-income Americans, and MCG partners have volunteered with RT from the start. For the past three years, MCG worked with Rebuilding Together Baltimore to revitalize the DeWees Community Center and the Mid-Govans neighborhood. At the national and local levels, MCG trains Rebuilding Together AmeriCorps site partners and coaches program staff on evaluation and effective supervision. "McMahon Consulting Group has been a great resource for us for proposal writing, project planning and project leadership," reports Bonnie Bessor, Executive Director of Rebuilding Together Baltimore. "Their enthusiasm for community service is contagious!"
Our Client: Michigan Community Service Commission
In 2011, Michigan took a bold step: they moved to an evidence-based approach to fund literacy programs. Armed with data on what works, MCSC hired MCG to facilitate a statewide working group to replicate the Minnesota Reading Corps. In its second year, the Michigan Reading Corps has helped ___ children read at grade level, shifting their odds from likely drop-out to likely graduate.
McMahon Consulting Group is helping us bring more money for national service to Michigan. Whether leading planning discussions with key influentials, working one on one with organizations to help them identify their strengths and areas for growth, or helping the state commission to develop effective plans for action, MCG produces ideas that make organizations healthier. Their expertise runs both broad and deep.
- Jeanine Yard, Senior Program Officer, Michigan Community Service
Our Client: Chicago Bar Foundation
Navigating the court system alone is daunting-- especially for those going through a crisis, those with minimal education or those who speak English as a second language. CBF and partners hired MCG to implement the Illinois JusticeCorps. Now AmeriCorps members help people without lawyers navigate the court process.
McMahon Consulting Group has supported the Illinois JusticeCorps for the entire life of our program. Cole has been an incredible resource and advocate to help us wade through and understand AmeriCorps regulations, procedures and budgets. Cole is patient, knowledgeable and creative, and he has been a critical partner in helping us troubleshoot our first few years of operation. Working with McMahon Consulting Group has absolutely contributed to our success.
- Danielle Hirsch, Executive Director, Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice
Our Client: Equal Justice Works
EJW is the nation’s largest provider of service opportunities for lawyers and law students. MCG was developing a budget for EJW in September 2005, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast region. MCG pivoted, creating an AmeriCorps fellowship program to address the legal needs of victims, and securing $120,000 in federal funds. Cole was hired fulltime and directed Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps for 6 years.
Our Client: Connecticut Office of Higher Education
Serve Connecticut faces a common problem: partner organizations and grantees have to generate better and better outcomes and improve sustainability - simultaneously. They hired MCG with this charge: help our programs with data, marketing and financial surety. Through training, coaching and assessing their grants, MCG is taking Connecticut’s AmeriCorps programs to the next level.
We’ve hired McMahon Consulting Group three times in the last year. First, to train programs on an implementation culture of getting things right at the start rather than just in time at the end; second to coach them to better document progress of effort and success, and third to translate their successes to financial support and sustainability. The feedback has been great. Programs have responded really well to the coaching, and we’re excited to see how things will align in the course of a program year.
- Shayla Williams, Senior Program Officer
Our Client: South Carolina Association of United Ways
In tough times, funders seek better tools to make funding decisions. It’s an old question: How do you weigh the impact of programs that do different things? And how do you define success? Last year, the South Carolina Service Commission took an unusual approach, and decided to create standards—not just for impact evaluation, but for sustainability. MCG tailored policy recommendations for education and financial literacy programs, and trained staff on how to collect and use their data to improve program performance. We also developed standards for program sustainability and trained program staff on new fundraising strategies.