Most nonprofits with a $5–20M budget don't have the headcount or budget for a full-time CIO. Honestly, you don't need one. You need someone who's been there, who can move fast as an outside expert, and who costs a fraction of a full-time hire. That's what I do.
Most of the leaders I work with come to me feeling one of these:
If any of these hit home, you're not behind, you're exactly who I work with.
I'm not here to fix your printer. I'm here for the decisions that actually move your mission, the ones that are too big to guess at and too important to hand to a vendor with something to sell.
These are the calls I help you make.
“Where should our technology go, and what comes first?”
A clear, prioritized plan your board can follow and your staff can live with, grounded in how your organization really works, not a generic checklist. I also help you make the big build-or-buy calls and get real value from every dollar you spend.
“Is our funding engine pulling its weight?”
Your website and online giving are your front door and your revenue engine. I help you choose and connect the right donor CRM, giving platform, and web presence. I've led this work before, from an award-winning ucsf.edu redesign to platform launches that drove millions in their first season.
“Can we prove our impact and report with confidence?”
Scattered spreadsheets turned into clean dashboards and reporting you trust, so you can show funders the difference you make and keep the money flowing, without scrambling every grant cycle.
“Are we exposed, and can I face my board with confidence?”
Donor data, client records, and compliance, with the right protections in place and explained to your board in plain language, so they understand the risk, the plan, and why it's worth funding.
“Where does AI actually help, and how do we adopt it safely?”
AI is moving fast and most nonprofits have no plan. I help you cut through the hype, find where it genuinely helps, and put guardrails in place, the same kind of AI governance framework I've built from scratch.
“Do we have the right people, and will the change stick?”
Building and developing the team, hiring the right roles, and leading change so your staff adopt it instead of resisting it, informed by a coach's training, not just an org chart.
Good technology advice isn't about knowing every tool. It's about seeing your situation clearly, making the right calls, and helping them actually stick. Everything I do runs through three stages.
See clearly
Before any solution, I work to understand your mission and how your organization actually operates, not how the org chart says it does. Most technology fails because it solves the wrong problem. We start by naming the right one.
Decide well
Clarity becomes a prioritized path: the few decisions that matter most, made with the pattern recognition of someone who's sat in the CIO chair three times. You leave knowing what to do, what to skip, and why.
Make it stick
Strategy is worthless if it doesn't land. I stay in your corner as the change unfolds, keeping it moving and helping your people adopt it, because the hardest part of any system is always the people who have to live with it.
The first two stages are the Assessment: three weeks that become the first version of your Living Roadmap. The third is the ongoing membership — the roadmap, kept alive.
It starts with a free 30-minute call: no pitch, no pressure, just an honest conversation about what you're actually facing. I promise it'll be worth your time whether or not we end up working together. If it's a fit, we begin with the three-week Assessment — and you have a board-ready roadmap inside 30 days.
Book a Free 30-Minute CallA sample of outcomes from a career leading technology inside mission-driven institutions.
This isn't a help desk or a stack of deliverables. It's a membership: a living technology roadmap for your organization, and ongoing access to the vCIO who maintains it with you — someone who treats technology as a human problem, not just a technical one. You're paying for judgment and availability, not hours on a clock.
What does not having a CIO cost?
Against any one of these, a membership is risk mitigation — not a consulting fee.
I work with nonprofit leaders, typically at $5M–$20M organizations, and hold six member seats in total so the relationship stays real. Memberships run annually, aligned to your fiscal year — a strategic relationship built into your budget, not a subscription you churn. Joining mid-year? We start with six months and align at renewal.
Running something larger than $20M? Let's design a membership that fits.
Founder, Envisionyst
I've been there. Many, many times: as a three-time CIO/CTO inside mission-driven institutions like the Brooklyn Academy of Music and San Francisco Opera, where I was completely accountable for the outcome, and then founding Envisionyst to advise global nonprofits including Water.org, ClimateWorks Foundation, and HIAS. Today I'm the CIO of a $210M national fundraising organization, so I'm still in the chair, not just talking about it.
What makes me different is that I've never been just a technologist. I'm a management consultant, a certified transformational coach, and a design strategist by training, an MBA in Design Strategy on top of a BA in Computer Science, plus an entrepreneur who went through a Bay Area startup accelerator. All of it taught me the same lesson: technology only works when you understand the people using it. That's the human side I bring to every engagement.
Whatever you're dealing with right now, a system that just broke, a board asking hard questions about technology spend, or a grant pushing you to grow faster than your systems can handle, what you're feeling is valid. I've seen it many times. I can help you fix it and make it better.
I hear this a lot: "we can't afford a CIO." You're right, and you don't need a full-time one. Here's what I mean by that, and why the sweet spot is usually in the middle.
Read more →I've seen these same five gaps over and over again, across very different organizations. Here's what they are and what to actually do about each one.
Read more →I've sat on both sides of vendor contracts. Most nonprofits are paying for more than they use. Here's how to find it and what to do with the savings.
Read more →Seven signs you've outgrown your technology setup — a plain-spoken self-assessment for executive directors and board members. Read it in ten minutes; no jargon, no pitch.
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No. This is pure advisory, strategy, judgment, and oversight. I help you make the right calls and guide the work; your team or vendors handle the execution.
Most $5–20M nonprofits don't need, or can't justify, a full-time CIO. A membership gives you that senior judgment for a fraction of the cost.
That's fine — the work doesn't stop. Your Living Roadmap stays current, your board reporting stays ready, and I'm watching the decisions coming toward you. You're paying for judgment on call and a strategy that never goes stale, not hours consumed.
Memberships run annually, aligned to your fiscal year, so the work lives in your budget as a line item rather than on a card. Joining mid-year? We start with six months and align at renewal.
Hands-on execution, help-desk and IT support, and day-to-day operations. I'm your strategic advisor, not your IT department.
No. I'm 100% vendor-independent: no referral fees, no reseller deals, no conflicts of interest.
A free 30-minute call. If it's a fit, a three-week Technology Assessment becomes the first version of your Living Roadmap — and half the assessment fee credits toward your membership if you join within 60 days.
I promise you the free 30-minute call will be valuable whether or not you decide to work with me. I love helping nonprofits, that's why I offer it for free.
No pitch. No pressure. Just an honest conversation about what's actually going on.
Because I take this on alongside full-time CIO leadership work, I hold six member seats in total — when they're full, they're full.