One-to-One Support for Mission-Driven Organizations

Bea’s Helpline offers virtual support sessions for people working in social justice and mission-drive organizations. 

  • You set the agenda. 

  • All calls are 1 hour. 

  • Fees are on a sliding scale.

Ways You Can Use a Helpline Session

You can use helpline sessions to work through roadblocks–big or small–that are preventing you from creating the organizational or social change you image. 

Roadblocks can include difficult conversations you need to have, a presentation to practice or prepare, emails you have procrastinated, ideas better refined with a thought partner, or ethical conversations you want to explore with someone outside your organization.

Action-oriented, problem-solving or strategy session

Topics: Campaigns, communications (traditional, social, crisis, internal), fundraising, organizational change

Example: It’s the 4th quarter and you are facing a significant budget deficit in operating funds but have program funds that you are frantically working to spend down. You need to quickly put a better plan in place.

Thought-partnering conversation to work through major organizational issues

Topics: Ethics, governance, mission-minded decisions, operationalizing organizational equity, reformist reform traps, avoiding or addressing harm

Example: You’re a white queer woman working at a small organization that serves Black LGBTQI+ communities. You have done the work for decades and love it but the ongoing triple pandemics (racism, the overdose crisis, and COVID) are burning you out. Setting boundaries (as simple as a 40 hour work week) could mean shifting work to queer people of color or limiting essential services. You are not a part of leadership. What do you do?

Non-judgmental brainstorms

Topics:  General organizational problem solving, identifying “third options” or alternative paths forward, campaign tactics 

Example: You’re a volunteer Board Member and chair the development committee. Your peers are tremendously talented and busy. You want to brainstorm how to be helpful without being a burden on staff.

Feedback on presentations or documents

Topics: Campaign communications (press releases, sign-on letters, tool kits), fundraising documents (budgets and budget narratives, fundraising appeals, grant narratives, LOIs, pitch decks), external communications (annual reports, announcements of organizational transitions, job descriptions, letters to the editor or op-eds, speeches), internal communications (internal memos, non-legal parts of organizational handbooks) 

Example: You are about to meet with a longstanding funder. Admittedly you haven’t been in regular communication. The funder has awarded your organization the same $15K in programmatic support for five consecutive years. Other funders will fund that program. You want to ask for multi-year operating support at a higher level. You know the funder has capacity. You want help crafting and delivering that pitch.

Active co-working to move something along

Topics:  Communications, Networking, Meeting Planning, Writing

Example: Writing emails to the five colleagues you met at a conference last week hasn’t happened. Let’s take an hour and do them together!

Example: You have a blank page and an op-ed to write. Let’s talk it out and I’ll take notes!

Example: It’s late Thursday and you told your Board you would get a board packet (agenda, program updates, financials, examples of recent press, and a large question that needs some framing) to them over the weekend and you just can’t.

Making decisions

Topics: Organization, prioritizing tasks, eliminating tasks 

Example: You can’t even make your list and you know some things will need to come off of it. Pause for an hour and let’s do it together.

Who We Serve

We take calls from:

  • Changemakers

  • Frontline workers

  • Leaders

  • Organizers

  • Volunteers

  • And others 

Organizations of all sizes and stages turn to us for help, including:

  • Non-profits

  • Campaigns 

  • Coalitions 

  • Government

  • Mutual aid organizations 

  • Small businesses

  • Philanthropic organizations and intermediaries

  • Other emerging organizational types working for social justice

Causes We Care About

Bea’s Helpline strives to support groups that are organizing with directly impacted people. A true generalist, there are few issues I haven’t worked on. The following are areas where my passions and experiences most often converge:

Abolition

  • Bail funds

  • Decriminalization

  • Post decarceration efforts (housing, education, material support)

Art

  • Literary arts

  • The intersection of art and activism

  • Pubic and participatory art

Economic Justice

  • Basic needs 

  • Cannabis equity programs

  • Guaranteed Basic Income/Universal Basic Income

  • Inequality 

  • Solidarity economies 

  • Worker-owned cooperatives

Environmental Justice

Education

  • Access for first-generation college students

  • Free public education (K-16)

  • Arts education

Food security

  • Access to culturally appropriate food

  • Farms and farming

Harm reduction

Healthcare

  • Abortion rights

  • Non-carceral responses to mental health crises

Housing and Houselessness

  • Low-threshold and housing first models

  • Material aid and support for unhoused people

Organizing

  • Base and movement building for community-identified needs 

  • Intersectional-identity focused organizing led by frontline communities

  • LGBTQI+ rights 

  • Racial justice

  • Respite and retreat work

I’m increasingly interested in working with organizations at the intersection of harm reduction, abolition, and houselessness. Please reach out.

Pay What’s Fair

Each helpline session is a 1-hour call that includes up to 30-minutes to review materials provided at least 24-hours in advance.

If your work organization is paying for your Helpline Call, please use this guide:

Comrades

Rate sliding scale: $50-$75

Org Budget Size: Up to $250K

Highest Paid Staff (FTE): Paid less than $60K per year or there are no staff

Solidarity

Rate sliding scale: $75-$175

Org Budget Size: $250K-$750K

Highest Paid Staff (FTE): Paid between $60K and $85K per year

Sustain

Rate sliding scale: $175-$325

Org Budget Size: $750K - $1.2M

Highest Paid Staff (FTE): Paid between $85K and 100K/year (FTE)

Full Cost

Rate sliding scale: $325

Org Budget Size: $1.2M and $5M

Highest Paid Staff (FTE): Paid between $100K and $150K/year (FTE)

Redistribution

Rate sliding scale: $350-$500

Org Budget Size: Over $5M

Highest Paid Staff (FTE): Paid over $150K/year

If you are paying independently for your Helpline Call, please pay what you can. I ask that Helpline Callers consider a minimum of $25 and if possible pay the full cost of $325. If $25 is too much, please do not hesitate to make an appointment. 

If organizations would like to make helpline calls part of a grant proposal or if philanthropic providers would like to offer them as a service to grantees, please send an email to set up a conversation about what that might look like. 

For more information about consulting projects people send an email with a short project description or RFP to michelle@beashelpline.com. For rush grant writing you can text me at 857.891.3095.

Ready for Help?

Fighting for change is hard. It’s ok to ask for help. Whether your current challenges are big or small, Bea’s Helpline is here for you.