The work we do is based on careful listening. By building consensus while gathering information and wisdom from staff, board and the public, we can shape an inclusive participatory process that produces better and more achievable results. Our experience working with a broad spectrum of stakeholders to assure that their voices are heard within a planning process has led, typically, to enormous benefits in morale, enthusiasm, and smooth-running implementation.

Synthesis Partnership provides a broad range of integrated services linking programmatic and facilities needs to institutional strategic objectives. Our essential advantage is that we are not limited to the expertise, the perspective, or the tools of a single discipline (such as strategic planning, business planning, architecture, the law, educational, library, or museum consulting or various sub-specialties). While we are experienced as strategic and business planners, we draw from each of these disciplines the knowledge that is needed to assess all aspects of a complex situation rigorously and comprehensively, and by integrating our findings into one plan, to help our clients to figure out where they want to go, and how to get there.

Because we are grounded in multiple areas, we do not lose track of the connection between ideas generated in strategic planning and implications for operational or physical implementation. Because of our seamless integration of expertise, we offer recommendations that are developed and evaluated fully and comprehensively.

Our work is focused and goal oriented, but also exploratory in nature. We begin by searching for the right questions before presuming to consider possible answers. We build on whatever internal analysis an institution has already done for itself or with other consultants. The work we do for a client is entirely dependent upon their specific needs:

• we have orchestrated strategic and long-range planning processes;
  
  
• we have conducted assessments of institutional identity and branding;
  
  
• we have performed governance and management evaluations;
  
  
• we have been retained solely for business planning services (existing operations analysis, market analysis, benchmarking, capital and operating budget projections, financial modeling, and implementation consulting); and
  
  
• we have helped some clients only in the evaluation of current facilities and the conceptualization, planning, and implementation of new facilities.

Above all Synthesis Partnership is a process advisor. We make certain that our clients draw from the knowledge of all their constituents to identify their most essential strategic goals and use these goals as a guide for all their planning.

To date, 75% of our clients have come back to us for subsequent assignments after we have completed the initial work for them.