Consultants for Community Resources
Consultants for Community Resources
Case Studies
Our work with organizations, governments, and community coalitions is grounded in practical strategies and long-term partnerships. These case studies highlight how CCR helps clients strengthen organizations, prepare for longer lives, and build more age-inclusive, intergenerational communities.
The Opportunity
The Cedars, northern New England’s largest Jewish nonprofit provider of housing, healthcare, and community services for older adults, was entering one of the most ambitious periods in its history. Leadership knew that long-term sustainability required more than a successful capital campaign. They wanted a comprehensive advancement program that could support innovation, strengthen community relationships, expand philanthropy, and position The Cedars for continued growth.
CCR’s Approach
CCR approached this work as an organizational development initiative rather than a fundraising assignment. Working closely with the President and CEO, Board leadership, staff, volunteers, and other consultants, CCR helped integrate philanthropy into every aspect of organizational leadership.
Over multiple years, the engagement included:
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Capital campaign strategy
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Advisory Committee development and facilitation
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Governance consultation
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Planned giving and Legacy Society development
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Annual giving strategy
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Foundation prospect identification and proposal development
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Donor communications and campaign messaging
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Executive recruitment for advancement leadership
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Ongoing strategic counsel on long-term philanthropic priorities
Rather than focusing on techniques alone, CCR emphasized building the systems, leadership structures, and organizational culture needed to sustain philanthropy well beyond a single campaign.
Results
The Cedars strengthened its advancement infrastructure and positioned itself for transformational philanthropy. New governance structures, expanded volunteer leadership, stronger donor engagement strategies, improved foundation outreach, enhanced planned giving initiatives, and a comprehensive advancement framework created a sustainable platform for future fundraising and organizational growth.
Lessons Learned
Successful philanthropy is rarely the result of better fundraising techniques alone. Organizations are most successful when governance, leadership, communications, volunteer engagement, and fundraising function as an integrated strategy focused on advancing mission over the long term.
The Opportunity
Many organizations begin strategic planning by cataloging community needs and organizational deficiencies. While understanding challenges is important, focusing only on problems can obscure the strengths that already exist within communities.
CCR has spent decades helping organizations adopt an Asset‑Based Community Development (ABCD) approach that begins with assets rather than deficiencies.
CCR’s Approach
CCR designed and facilitated ABCD training programs for nonprofit organizations, aging services providers, foundations, universities, and community leaders across the country.
Rather than presenting ABCD as an academic framework, CCR combined practical instruction with highly interactive learning experiences that helped participants:
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Identify community assets
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Strengthen partnerships
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Engage local residents
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Develop strategies grounded in existing community capacities
Participants explored six categories of community assets—individuals, associations, institutions, physical spaces, local economies, and community stories—while learning practical tools such as asset mapping, gifts inventories, appreciative inquiry, connector identification, and action analysis. Every workshop emphasized application rather than theory, allowing participants to begin developing implementation strategies during the training itself.
Results
Organizations that participated in these trainings incorporated ABCD principles into strategic planning, volunteer engagement, neighborhood partnerships, leadership development, and community initiatives. Participants consistently reported that the experience changed not only how they plan, but how they understand the communities they serve.
Lessons Learned
Communities become stronger when local people recognize the gifts that already exist around them and connect those assets in new ways. Sustainable community development begins not with scarcity, but with abundance.
The Opportunity
The Center for Healthy Aging wanted to create a nutrition education program that did far more than teach healthy eating. The vision was to use food as a catalyst for strengthening relationships among older adults, younger generations, Indigenous communities, and culturally diverse populations throughout Reno and Washoe County.
CCR was engaged to help transform that vision into a practical educational model.
CCR’s Approach
CCR designed an intergenerational nutrition education curriculum built around the idea that food can strengthen both individual health and community well‑being.
The twelve‑session curriculum:
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Integrates Indigenous knowledge, nutritional science, storytelling, gardening, cooking, food preservation, cultural traditions, and community planning
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Positions elders as teachers of history, culture, and traditional ecological knowledge
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Engages younger participants as learners and future community leaders
As planning evolved, the curriculum expanded beyond Indigenous traditions to include Latino, Filipino, African American, and immigrant communities, creating an inclusive model that celebrates cultural diversity while emphasizing shared values of health, sustainability, and intergenerational learning.
CCR also developed implementation strategies, educational materials, and dissemination plans to position the initiative as a model for communities across the country.
Results
The project produced a comprehensive educational framework demonstrating that nutrition education can also become community education. The curriculum strengthened opportunities for cultural preservation, community engagement, healthy aging, youth leadership, and intergenerational collaboration.
Lessons Learned
Food nourishes more than individuals. Thoughtfully designed community food initiatives can strengthen relationships, preserve culture, improve health, and create lasting connections across generations.
The Opportunity
Presbyterian Villages of Michigan (PVM) sought to expand its national philanthropic reach while strengthening its capacity to develop innovative programs serving older adults across the state.
CCR was engaged not simply to identify funding opportunities, but to help position the organization as a national leader in aging innovation.
CCR’s Approach
Working closely with the PVM Foundation and senior leadership, CCR helped:
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Identify national funding opportunities
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Increase organizational visibility
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Manage innovation initiatives
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Coordinate proposal development
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Support research dissemination
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Organize conference presentations
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Strengthen long‑term philanthropic strategy
The engagement included support for the Enterprise Innovation initiative, proposal research and writing, the Campaign for the Ages, expansion of PACE initiatives, development of intergenerational housing concepts, identification of national foundation partners, and strategic positioning before national audiences interested in aging, caregiving, housing, and community innovation.
Rather than focusing exclusively on proposals, CCR emphasized building long‑term relationships with national funders and helping PVM articulate innovative approaches to housing, caregiving, technology, and community development.
Results
The engagement strengthened PVM’s capacity to compete for national philanthropic investments and increased its visibility as an innovator in housing and services for older adults. Proposal development became part of a broader strategy emphasizing partnerships, innovation, and national leadership.
Lessons Learned
Successful fundraising follows innovation. Organizations that clearly articulate compelling solutions to important community challenges become far more attractive to philanthropic partners than organizations seeking support primarily to sustain existing programs.
The Opportunity
Many philanthropists recognize important community needs but struggle to determine where their investments can make the greatest long‑term difference.
One family approached CCR with a desire to improve support for family caregivers. Rather than funding an isolated project, they wanted to understand the caregiving field, identify unmet opportunities, and develop a thoughtful philanthropic strategy capable of strengthening existing systems of care.
CCR’s Approach
CCR began by helping the donor understand the broader caregiving ecosystem.
Working with nationally recognized leaders in caregiving, aging, healthcare, and philanthropy, CCR:
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Developed vision statements
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Facilitated strategic discussions
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Prepared landscape analyses
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Identified emerging caregiver support models
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Mapped national and regional philanthropic investments
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Explored opportunities for collaboration rather than duplication
Rather than encouraging the creation of a new organization, CCR helped the donor consider how philanthropy could:
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Strengthen existing organizations
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Encourage innovation
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Support research
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Improve caregiver education
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Foster collaboration across multiple sectors
Results
The engagement transformed an initial philanthropic interest into a thoughtful strategic framework grounded in evidence, collaboration, and long‑term systems change. The donor gained a comprehensive understanding of the caregiving landscape and was positioned to make future investments informed by both compassion and careful analysis.
Lessons Learned
The most effective philanthropy begins long before the first grant is awarded. Meaningful investments emerge when donors understand the communities they hope to serve, listen carefully to practitioners and people with lived experience, and seek opportunities to strengthen existing systems rather than simply create new ones.
Sectors Served
CCR works across multiple sectors to strengthen organizations and communities. These case studies highlight work with senior living organizations, community-based nonprofits, public agencies, and philanthropic partners.
Senior Living & Aging Services
Examples: The Cedars; Presbyterian Villages of Michigan
Community-Based Nonprofits & Coalitions
Examples: Asset-Based Community Development trainings; Center for Healthy Aging
Philanthropy & Family Foundations
Examples: From Generosity to Strategy – Supporting Family Caregivers