Our Work

DCA helps clients achieve their vision of a better future. We collaborate with clients as they seek new ideas and breakthrough strategies to bring about large-scale social progress.

Our work for non-profit leaders

Leaders of non-profits continually face two critical questions: How can my organization pursue its mission most effectively? How can we secure and apply the resources we need to be successful? DCA helps non-profit executives answer those questions.

Our methodology produces:

• Board and staff leadership focused on specific social goals and objectives.
• Strategic action plans that create a roadmap for progress and accountability for results.
• Powerful institutional alliances built around shared goals.
• Resource development that encompasses all potential sources of support.

Our work for foundation leaders

Foundations are under greater pressure than ever to achieve impact and demonstrate their value. And even the most well endowed face limits to what can be changed through funding alone. DCA helps foundation executives tackle the issue of how they can be the most effective catalysts for change. We help them discover how they can leverage the contributions they make and promote the sustainability of the progress they have already made.

Our assistance has enabled foundations with interests at the local, national and international levels to:

• Identify opportunities for major outcomes and determine clear goals, objectives and reasonable time frames.
• Design collaborative initiatives that engage funding partners, organizations and other leaders.
• Ensure sustainability of key initiatives by helping grantees gain the capacity to attract long-term support.

Our work for coalition leaders

Coalitions do some of society’s most important work, such as improving literacy, preventing drug abuse, creating access to healthcare, and ensuring school readiness. But coalition leaders must create agendas that all their partners can support. They must motivate coalition members to follow through on their commitments. They must overcome insecurities about funding collaborative efforts when there’s so much competition for funding each member’s primary operation.

DCA has helped coalitions to:

• Establish shared objectives and help each coalition member determine what measurable contribution it can make.
• Expand the base of support by identifying coalition goals with the interests of the larger community and major funding sources.
• Recruit leaders who can bring clout to the cause.
• Find the most viable institutional “home” for the cause and create long-term governance and management structures.

Our work for corporate leaders

Corporate America’s customers and shareholders are demanding more social accountability and social conscience from the businesses they support. It is difficult for corporate executives, though, to balance social action with business imperatives or to discern where corporate assets could achieve the most social impact. DCA assists corporations to meet significant human needs in ways that are relevant to business objectives.

Our work enables businesses to:

• • Identify opportunities for social impact that also offer business benefits, such as better market positioning, enhanced employee morale, new alliances or workforce development.
• Launch cause initiatives that define a corporation’s social values and enhance the context in which the company does business.
• Create contribution programs that draw strategically on corporate assets – philanthropic, product, advocacy, communications, leadership – to achieve the biggest societal impact.