Background

POC Collaborative is a Nebraska-based nonprofit dedicated to connecting local entrepreneurs and small businesses with essential capacity-building resources. As a relatively new organization, their Executive Director felt the need to strengthen how program activities connected to long-term community outcomes, both internally for clarity and externally for donor communications.

Approach

A human-centered, equity-driven process guided our engagement:

• We co-created a logic model, mapping POC Collaborative’s resources, activities, and intended short-, mid-, and long-term impacts.

• Weekly collaboration with the Executive Director ensured deep alignment between service design and the organization’s mission and community context.

• We framed the work through an equity lens — focusing not just on outputs, but on how service alignment could expand reach, trust, and measurable impact.

Outcome

• A concise theory of change articulating how each service offering contributes to long-term impact, used internally and for funder storytelling.

• A detailed evaluation roadmap, empowering POC Collaborative to track outcomes over time, learn from community feedback, and make intentional improvements.

• A strategic blueprint grounded in community-informed design — positioning the organization for deeper reach, stronger trust, and greater impact moving forward.