Technical Advising & Consulting Services
Rethink Local offers transparent, flat-rate, creative, expert consulting and technical advising services for municipalities and nonprofits.
Our work will not just help you reach your goals, but to build the internal capacity of your organization and external capacity of your community and civic infrastructure.
Why is Rethink Local different?
Our purpose is public good
Community impact is our reason for existing and number one goal. As a nonprofit/benefit corp we are dedicated to improving the communities that we work in.
We are rigorous & evidence-based
Our ideas and expertise is developed and vetted through a combination academic study, real-world implementation, and a dynamic community of practitioners. We bring insights from dozens of organizations across all sectors, and many countries, regions, and states.
Our practitioners are passionate
Rethink Local’s practitioners routinely develop and further their skills through work with others, such as through International City/County Management Association, Municipal Management Association of New Hampshire, New Hampshire Municipal Association, Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Municipal Solutions Summit and many informal and small group networking and workshops.
What does Rethink Local offer?
Recruitment and retention
From comprehensive updates to wage scales to hiring and recruitment, to employee retention, to support in negotiating new collective bargaining contracts, we can help you navigate the path ahead as smoothly as possible so you can set your workforce up for success.
Town Administrator/Manager Search, Interim, and transition support
With deep experience helping organizations through senior leadership transitions, we can provide Interim Manager/Administrator services. We can keep the trains running on time while we help you flesh out key challenges and opportunities that can help empower your new Board and Manager for years of success that would have been impossible to achieve without a structured, phased transition.
Technology and AI
Whether you want to assess your current IT systems or understand how to integrate AI (Or not) into how your organization works, we have the expertise to help you best meet your technology goals.
Board strategic planning and onboarding
Ranging from helping you design or facilitate your nonprofit or local government’s board retreat/goal-setting, implementing a town-wide annual board and committee training, or reviewing your onboarding process, we can leverage a wide range of best practices that you can use to create forward-looking, collaborative boards that work well together.
Public outreach and communications
Whether you need assistance in designing a communications plan or template that you can give to each department, want to run a deep volunteer engagement campaign to identify unknown community leaders and finally fill all of your board/committee vacancies, or find ways to build engagement around upcoming decisions or bring more people out to Town Meeting, we can provide the strategies, tactics, and tools to help bring you and your community closer together.
A range of technical expertise
Whether you need assistance on economic/community development, human resources and employee retention, capital planning, grants, facility analysis, volunteer recruitment, technology implementation, regionalization/shared services, sustainability, transportation and mobility, or land conservation we can offer flat rate technical advising to support your government or nonprofit’s goals.
Who has Rethink Local worked with?
Finding the right chief executive for a growing town and ensuring a smooth transition from a long serving prior manager
Alex ran the recruitment for Town Administrator
and served as Interim TA for Swanzey, NH.
With nearly 25 applications, three rounds of thoughtful interviews, unique interview methodologies, & streamlined workflows, a
successful finalist was appointed in two months.
Working with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to help new elected officials build trust and be successful
Alex was contracted by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to design and facilitate a set of workshops for onboarding new elected officials to help build trust and civic resiliency that are piloting this spring in Vermont.
This projects taps Alex’s experience as an elected and appointed official and educator, and provides interactive discussion for new officials on topics such as public outreach, goal-setting, roles/responsibilities, volunteer engagement, and more.
Engaging the community and helping identify a long-term vision and action steps for a historic VT arts institution
Alex is completing a strategic planning process for the Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, Vermont.
This project created nearly 200 community touch points, and drove engagement with long-serving Board members before they retire to help offload key information and set a plan for their future Board.
Covering capital, finance, community engagement, facility layout, stakeholder partnerships, this plan with over thirty pages of insights discussed at collaborative in-person retreat will serve as a valuable roadmap for Chandler’s future.
Curious to learn more what we can do for you?
Our pricing is based in part on town/budget size and certain programs can be funded through grant and philanthropic funds, so don’t let that stop you from accomplishing great things.