SCS offers a variety of consulting services intended to strengthen organizations’ governance, executive management, staff operations, functional integration, evaluation, and program development and management. While the core of his consulting practice is foundations, Dr. Prager’s clients have included public charities, universities, non-profit organizations, professional societies, and for-profit corporations. Services provided to these organizations include:
- Strategic Thinking — Helping conceptualize programs and actions, including articulation of clear and consistent visions, emphases, rationales, expectations, and intended outcomes.
- Strategic Planning — Facilitating the formulation of appropriate and effective strategies for achieving organizational goals, including: (i) establishment of priorities and time frames; (ii) development of suitable programmatic strategies; and (iii) identification and mobilization of requisite human, institutional, technical, and financial resources.
- Strategic Action — Helping develop and implement foundations’ grantmaking strategies and processes, including: (i) conceptualization of program focus; (ii) formulation of guidelines, solicitation strategies, and time frames; (iii) establishment and operation of review mechanisms; (iv) preparation of documents for board review; and (v) design of effective and efficient program management, administration, oversight, and assessment functions. Extensive experience with the launching of new foundations and their programs.
- Board and Staff Development — Enhancing governance, management, and staff functions, and the relationships among them: (i) clarifying the principal obligations, responsibilities, and functions of governing boards, providing guidance on conduct and conflicts of interest, and developing productive styles of operation; (ii) enhancing the effectiveness of executives, clarifying their roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis the board and staff, and focusing their energies on critical organizational leadership and management functions; and (iii) increasing the productivity of line staffs, establishing efficient operational mechanisms, appropriate frameworks of accountability and rewards, and effective modes of communication and collaboration.
- Organizational Development — Clarifying and strengthening the responsibilities of the functional units that comprise organizations, and increasing the degree to which their collective efforts are greater than the sum of their individual contributions.
- Collaborative Strategies — Designing and implementing strategies for facilitating sustained interaction among individuals and institutions pursuing shared goals, including the creation and operation of collaborative networks and consortia.
- Program Development and Management — Developing, implementing, and managing initiatives intended to further the programmatic and institutional goals of client organizations, with emphasis on complex initiatives in which success depends upon effective collaboration and integration across many “moving parts.”