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Thought and Work Partnerships

How We Help

For Donors

Are you a donor in search of a partner who helps:

• Identify organizations with whom to partner and leverage your precious philanthropic resources?

• Forge and refine strategies to maximize the impact of your philanthropic investments through planning and board development?

• Provide accountability and support to your philanthropic partners by conducting site visits, executive and board development, fundraising, and other counsel?

“We asked Steve to partner with us when we were considering how to grow and further refine our philanthropic initiatives. We knew that his experience working with so many other foundations and nonprofits would help our team add more depth and breadth to our philanthropic investments and identity.”

Jim Bailey, Co-Founder of Cambridge Associates and JK Knights Foundation

For Nonprofits

Are you a start-up or well-established nonprofit in search of a partner who helps:

Strategically plan and implement your mission and vision?
Establish, retain, and support a representative, highly functioning board?
Raise financial resources and grow your network of supporters with fundraising and other counsel?

“As an adviser to the YDO Board, Steve is helping me mentor and shape the next generation of staff and Board leadership at an inflection point for the organization. Our 20th anniversary is fast approaching and we are imagining a campaign that would propel the YDO community to and through the next 20 years. Steve is helping us honor our past while skillfully nudging us to form new habits with confidence and courage. Steve and I have enjoyed and learned from our many conversations about doing the hard work that is often missing from pledges to invest in communities like Lawrence. ”

Mark Kampert, Executive Director, Youth Development Organization

Meet To The Good and Steve

"I have truly valued Steve’s services and his kind, thoughtful, professional demeanor. He was the support I needed to carry me through our process, and was the bridge between multiple parties on our project—someone I could trust and someone they would listen to."

Anonymous Family Foundation Client

"We engaged Steve to help us acquire new perspectives on our focus and strategies for our philanthropic activities. His thoughtful process was distinctive and eye-opening on several levels. Not only did he take the time to truly understand our objectives but also provided thoughtful perspectives from others that allowed us to imagine a different approach for our future charitable/impact investing activities. His experience as an executive director and advisor to other donors and nonprofits are both rare and helpful."

Diane and Mike Christian, Founders and Trustees of Someone Else’s Child Foundation and Community Impact Ventures

"After forty years of successful grant making in Massachusetts, we asked Steve to be the first outside party to help us plan for future grant making and succession of trustees and staff. We appreciate Steve’s due diligence, relationship building, celebration of our past, and offering innovative ideas for our future." Jay Kelly, Amelia Peabody Foundation Executive Director and Trustee

Strategic Planning, Governance, and Fundraising Workshop Attendees

“My family’s foundation asked Steve to work with one of our nonprofit partners on our behalf. We knew that his deep experience and credibility from having served as a courageous founding executive director for decades would help our grantee’s board move forward from Covid with a thoughtful, informed, and practical strategic planning solution.“

David McGrath, Highland Street Foundation Trustee

"It Kicks! Foundation asked Steve to partner with us when our family was considering how to grow and further define our somewhat scattershot philanthropic initiatives. We wanted to launch our family foundation with a focus on Greater Lawrence and knew that his deep, front line experience working with so many other foundations and nonprofits for decades would help our team."

Jeff Black, Director of It Kicks! Foundation and Owner & COO of Energy North Group

“I’ve known Steve through his tireless work over 20 years of building Prep@Pingree as a hugely successful and model program that bridges the gap between well-resourced and under-resourced communities in our region. He is esteemed in education and nonprofit circles as a thought leader.”

Erin Van Otterloo, Executive Director of The Van Otterloo Family Foundation

“Our Board engaged Steve when we were unclear about how to move forward after COVID-19. Steve worked efficiently and on an expedited basis to gather outside information, help us listen to one another’s opinions, and plan for our next phase. I’m thankful for Steve’s clear and timely communication, ability to reach out and synthesize stakeholders’ perspectives on our behalf, and facilitate our Board meetings. He is truly adept at working with different personalities and brings a calm and encouraging demeanor.”

Peter Gelzinis, Paraclete Center Board Chair

"Steve's advice was spot-on and we really appreciate him for creating a road map of next steps for us. Extremely helpful. Right on point. It was an absolute pleasure to speak with Steve. The highlight of my day."

Strategic Planning, Governance, and Fundraising Workshop Attendees

"We met Steve at a time of great transition for our organization. Thanks to his ability to connect with our key stakeholders, deep listening and communication skills, Steve held up a mirror for us to see and re-look at our governance and fundraising approaches. He helped us hire our first executive director, tell our story on the road with donors, and begin to put the right pieces in place for even more robust board engagement and fundraising."

Dr. Bill Chin, Board Chair of Mengo Hospital Partners; and Professor of Medicine Emeritus and former Executive Dean for Research, Harvard Medical School

"Steve could not have been more helpful in supporting our small and young non-profit to transition to the next stage of our growth. As a new ED, it was great to have a third party partner to brainstorm program, board and fundraising ideas. I very much appreciated the fact that he was always available and responsive to my questions. Steve prepared a detailed report that will serve to strengthen our board and mission going forward. I will definitely reach out to Steve for future support!"

Lauren Barthold, Founding Executive Director, Heathmere Center for Cultural Engagement

“The world is full of virtue signalers who are late or even insincere about making systemic changes needed today. I consider Steve to be the real deal when it comes to thinking about and most importantly, DOING, the hard work of creating a startup and leveling a very uneven playing field through education.”

Rob Dixon, Founder and CEO of RISE Academy

“We met Steve as a valued consultant and now he feels like a member of our own team! Steve navigated our challenges with skill and grace. His direct communication and enthusiasm helped move our team in the right direction, so much so that we extended our work with him more than once. From strategic planning to Board development and fundraising, we think of Steve as an invaluable, objective, extended senior staff member who helps us think through and implement important initiatives that lead to our capacity building and financial sustainability.”

Liz Green, Executive Director of the Three Sisters Garden Project

“A family friend introduced me to Steve because they thought he could help me organize and fundraise for a nonprofit delivering healthcare in Palestine. I am currently a family medicine resident physician so building a fundraising case with compelling materials and a plan is not in my wheelhouse, nor do I have time to spare. Thankfully Steve can help me think through and implement how to go about launching an initiative that I care a lot about and the world needs.”

Dr. Henry Louis, Health for Palestine

“Because Steve has spent so much of his career on the front lines building relationships and actually getting work done in the communities we partner with so closely, I turned to Steve to help me think through our language and concrete action steps aimed at Eastern Bank Foundation leveraging its resources toward a more equitable region of economic inclusion and mobility.”

Nancy Stager, President and CEO of the Eastern Bank Foundation

A Versatile and Experienced Resource for Donors and Nonprofits

To The Good’s dual missions are to help donors make beneficial investments in important organizations while helping nonprofit leaders deliver meaningful outcomes.

As the Founder and Principal of To The Good, Steve advises donors and nonprofits by connecting the dots between strategic planning, board development, fundraising, and other counsel.

He is a nationally known founder, fundraiser, senior administrator, and math teacher with a 30-year track record of success. Because Steve has sat in nearly every organizational seat from the boardroom to the van driver, he brings an empathetic, comprehensive view on how organizations and individuals succeed or fail.

He’s spoken comfortably and productively with seven figure donors in their living rooms, board members in the boardroom, community partners in the field, and middle schoolers on their playground. For 20 years, Steve was the Founding and Executive Director of Prep@Pingree, Pingree School’s groundbreaking, year-round, academic enrichment, scholarship, and jobs program for underserved students and adults.

He served as a Founding Advisory Board member of Steppingstone Foundation’s National Partnership for Educational Access (NPEA) and trustee of the North Shore YMCA Corporate Board, Bellesini Academy, the Ipswich Education Foundation (Vice-President), and Stoneridge Montessori School. He earned a B.S. in mathematics from Tufts University and J.D. from Suffolk University Law School while working full-time. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association.