Consulting Within Reach was recently contacted by a startup called Re:formation, a group of Christians who wanted to promote "thoughtful, inclusive, and hope filled" conversation around social and political issues, all done in a way that provided a distinct alternative to the harsh rhetoric of the "culture wars." Its leadership had heard about CWR's work in building from scratch the organizational infrastructure of a new foundation in a mere several weeks.

For Re:formation, speed was of the essence as it wanted to meet an impending target date to capitalize on its current momentum. On the evening of March 31st, the leadership (based in the East Coast) decided to turn to a firm that had already proven itself in all those traits.

The next morning, their email arrived in the inbox of CWR lead consultant Curtis Chang at 4 a.m. PST. Sensing their urgency (and having checked that this was no April Fools joke!), Curtis began a day filled with multiple email and phone conversations with Re:formation.

Through the brief but intense process, he helped them articulate their underlying priorities. CWR has extensive experience in building websites for dynamic organizations.  We've learned to frame the process as more than just a technology endeavor, but also as a forcing mechanism for strategic decisions. In this case, the technological questions clarified for the leadership that their long term ambitions were considerably broader than the content that would appear immediately on the site.  As such, CWR steered them towards a particular web infrastructure that could quickly adapt to changing needs in the future.

They also decided that given the initiative's national audience, it would also need a well done graphic identity to announce itself as a new and distinct voice. Curtis helped produce a list of the core brand attributes of Re:formation that would guide the design process of both the site and its first organizational logo.

By 3:30pm that afternoon, Curtis had also spoken to CWR's Web developer Patrick McPhail and our Graphic Designer, Angela Aviles. Both agreed to take on the project and announced that they could start work immediately.

By 4 p.m CWR and Re:formation had reached a verbal agreement for CWR to build a website that featured advanced tools to create, manage, and display the entries of multiple bloggers.  CWR will also design its graphic identity and organizational logo.

Twelve hours after our first email exchange, we had a new client.  And our client had the beginnings of a new public presence.

We certainly don't work this fast all the time. In fact, we recommend against moving this quickly in most cases. But in the few special circumstances that do require extremely rapid response, we have demonstrated our ability to deliver.

In the commercial marketplace, this level of quality is generally only available to elite corporate customers at prohibitive prices.  Our mission at Consulting Within Reach is to make that same quality of work accessible to even small nonprofit startups.

Contact us to see if we might be able to help you with your urgent needs.