About Us
We are committed to solutions that make real change for communities.
Our Mission
CRE is a nonprofit consulting firm that provides the strategies and tools needed to build sustainable, high-performing organizations that improve people’s lives and drive social change. We partner with nonprofits, foundations, and government agencies to set ambitious goals for success – and then we help them get there. Together, we work to reduce poverty, promote equity, and increase opportunity.
As a nonprofit ourselves, we believe that social sector organizations deserve accessible solutions to the challenges they face. Our diverse team of expert consultants provide customized strategies that blend deep consulting experience and operational expertise to help leaders succeed in an environment of complexity and change. We tap the transformative power of assessment, data, strategy, leadership, and collaboration to help organizations plan smartly, operate effectively, and produce results.
Our Theory of Change
CRE provides capacity building and consulting services that focus on the foundations of organizational success: engaged leadership, high performing staff, financial stability, effective programs, and a culture of learning and continuous improvement. When organizations are clear about their social value, deliver high quality work, and can sustain their results over time, they are stronger and more effective in achieving their goals.
What to expect when you work with CRE
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Impactful
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High Performing
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Values
We are committed to our values, including our deepening commitment to racial equity and to dismantling anti-Blackness:
• Collaboration: We are smarter and more creative when we work together (and it’s more fun too).
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility: We believe that true impact can only be achieved when we lift up diverse voices that have not always been heard.
• Accountability and Excellence: We promise excellence in all that we do and hold ourselves accountable to the community, the people we serve, and each other.
• Reflective Practice: We appreciate the big questions, tough discussions, and unexpected answers.
• Power of Change: We believe that change is always possible and unleashes opportunity and the potential for creative solutions that improve communities.
• Courage: We embrace bold ideas and risks that allow us to partner with clients as they overcome challenges and move toward change.
Commitment to Anti-Racism
CRE envisions a world where:
• Racial equity and anti-racism are, by design, universally endorsed and deeply embedded into the very fabric of our societal DNA.
• In the U.S. and beyond, racism and anti-Blackness have been uprooted as drivers of “deservedness” in how people live, work, study, play, earn, achieve, love.
• The dignity and humanity of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) are recognized, valued, uplifted.
• The social sector holds a deep unwavering trust of BIPOC leaders, built on alignment between the message of equity and the act of equity. And boards, funders, leadership, and
decision-makers are represented by, and deeply united with, the communities they serve.
• All social justice organizations credibly live out anti-racist values by engaging in continual internal examination and practice, coupled with a conscious undoing of racist and antiBlack policies, beliefs, and behaviors.
• ALL organizations that hope for social change first hold themselves and their stakeholders accountable for sustaining a racially just society—a society in which all communities thrive equally; a society in which Black, Indigenous and POC communities are assured a path and supports for restorative, generational repair and healing; a society in which truly, all lives matter.
To learn more about our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization, click here.
History
CRE has been partnering with organizations working to drive social change since Fran Barrett founded the organization in 1979. Back then, we served community-based organizations by helping them exchange resources and build stronger foundations to better serve their communities. Today we are privileged to work with nearly 400 organizations annually, large and small, working to create opportunity and catalyze change.