REID ADLER

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Reid Adler
Reid Adler

Pro bono strategic consulting for community nonprofits at
an inflection point.

Helping community nonprofits find the next level — where their impact is greater, their reach wider, and their work more consequential.

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I

What This Is About

Pro bono strategic and operational consulting for community nonprofits at moments of genuine inflection. Not organizational maintenance or policy review — something bigger: the kind of change that puts an organization on the map, opens new levels of impact, or develops a capability it aspires to deploy.

Imagine this: Building a governance infrastructure that gives major donors confidence. Extending your reach to match your aspirations. Bringing the systems and practices of sophisticated institutions to your immediate community — scaled to your organization. Forming an alliance or merger with a complementary organization.

The goal of our collaboration is to take your organization up a level — not just to produce a polished report that ends up unread in your strategic planning folder. So, this engagement is not designed for updating policies, launching charitable campaigns, or incremental governance improvements. Those things matter, but there are other resources better suited to those needs.
II

How It Works

I take on a few new engagements every six months. We work together through three phases, about one year maximum. No commitment is required until we've both confirmed the fit and the goals.

1

Triage & Landscaping Zero to two months

Collaborative discovery — conversations with the board and staff, key donors and peers, and some online research. We take your aspirations and wish list seriously. We explore your vision, map your niche, consider your unique resources and potential capabilities. We connect with model organizations and together begin to picture what that step forward would actually look like for your organization. No commitments at this stage.

2

Groundwork Two to three months

The intensive phase. Build consensus inside the organization, develop the strategic plan, and define a realistic path with clear action items and milestones your organization will actually own. Showing up, asking the hard questions, and getting to decisions that stick.

3

Implementation Six to eight months

Validating the plan through execution. Check-ins, accountability, honest course-correction, acquisitions of expertise and resources — making things happen as the organization executes what it committed to do. Closes with a structured assessment — what worked, what to carry forward, and what the next big step might be.

III

What It Costs

The market value of this engagement could be as much as $25,000. However, no payment to me is required.

The model is accountability.

The minimum is accountability. Your organization commits to follow through on agreed action steps and to show up for the work. That commitment is the payment.

And when the work succeeds — as it should when we collaborate — you pay it forward: a meaningful contribution, at whatever level makes sense, to another 501(c)(3) of your choosing.

Why this model? This is my retirement avocation, chosen deliberately over paid consulting — a way to put forty years of consulting and legal practice to use in my own community where it might matter most.
IV

Who This Is For

This engagement works when four things are in place.

An executive director or board chair ready to commit to change. A board that's bought in. A passion to elevate the organization. And a genuine inflection point — an opportunity, not a bandaid for a symptom.

I'm most drawn to community-scale organizations in education (especially students with learning challenges), the fine arts, social services, civic life, and biomedical research — but a compelling inflection point in any field is worth a conversation.

V

About Reid Adler

Reid Adler

Forty years of business and legal counseling at the intersection of law, governance, public policy, technology, and the arts, diverse experience serving on and supporting nonprofit boards — and more than a decade teaching innovation management, law and policy, strategic planning, and technology transfer at Johns Hopkins. What transfers across all of it: the ability to identify the moment an organization can take a significant step forward, and help it get there successfully.

Nonprofit Board Experience

  • Howard Gardner School — Board Member and President
  • ACT for Alexandria — Current Board Member
  • Eagle Life Learning Foundation — Board Member
  • Alexandria Choral Society — Board Member and President
  • Traveling Players Ensemble — Board Member and Secretary
  • Mount Vernon Unitarian Church — Board Member and Chair
  • AAAS — Advisory Committee to the CEO and Board of Directors

Professional Background

  • NIH Office of Technology Transfer — Director
  • J. Craig Venter Institute — General Counsel and Secretary
  • Johns Hopkins University — Faculty, Master's Program in Biotechnology (10+ years) teaching Innovation Management, Strategic Planning, Biotechnology Law and Policy, and Technology Transfer
  • Public biopharma company — General Counsel (current)
  • Senior Partner to several multinational law firms
  • Co-Managing Partner, Capital Technology Law firm
  • Federal appellate clerkship
  • Max Planck Institute fellowship

BS Chemistry · JD · Senior Corporate Executive · Attorney · Governance Advisor · Educator · A career supporting nonprofits, for-profit enterprises, and government agencies · Numerous publications, invited presentations and congressional testimony

VI

Resources

Practical guides from the consulting practice — free to download.

Inflection Point Checklist

How to recognize a genuine inflection point — and assess whether your organization is ready to pursue it.

↓ Download PDF

Engagement FAQ

Common questions about the consulting model: cost, commitment, phases, scope, and what to expect.

↓ Download PDF
VII

Get in Touch

The first step is a conversation — usually with the executive director, sometimes a board member, or both. If you're wondering whether your organization might be at an inflection point and what it would take to get there, that's worth talking about.

I respond within a few days. Direct email: reid@reidadler.com

One note for clarity: this engagement is business advice, not legal advice, and creates no attorney–client relationship.

Message received. I'll be in touch soon.