Client Testimonials

As a client and an investor, I can say with certainty that Bridgespan is best in class. Their work is customized to client needs and rigorous in delivering results. Bridgespan helps turn philanthropic aspirations into high-impact reality.

Bridgespan has been an invaluable partner in the Raikes Foundation's work to foster environments that cultivate learning mindsets and skills for students—particularly those of color and from low-income backgrounds. With Bridgespan's collaboration and expertise, we translated our aspirations into an actionable strategy that will work as well for us as for our grantees and partners.

Bridgespan has a unique ability to bridge theory and practice—to help clients shape and convert big ideas into pragmatic plans. One of their unique strengths is an ability to bring strong analytics—and passion and heart—to helping clients solve big problems. In my experience, Bridgespan has the most talented team of philanthropic advisors in our sector.

The Bridgespan Group has been an outstanding partner to the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation for the past fifteen-plus years. The expertise, skills, and resources Bridgespan brings to the table is unparalleled for nonprofits, and we have benefited immensely from Bridgespan's strategic analysis and planning support. As a result of our partnership, we and our grantees are making smarter strategic decisions and producing greater impact for our nation's most disadvantaged children and youth.

Bridgespan has been our trusted partner in aggressively expanding the scale and scope of our philanthropy. They work closely with us to hone our philanthropic strategies, then they do the follow through...doing the deal sourcing and diligence we need for crisp decisions. Their insights have multiplied our philanthropic impact—and it's a lot more fun now with experts at our side.

In 1999, The Atlantic Philanthropies made a "big bet" to help Bridgespan come into being. Because of Tom Tierney's and Jeff Bradach's passion for strengthening America's nonprofit civic sector, as well as the widespread admiration for Bain & Company under Tom's leadership, Atlantic's CEO, Trustees and program staff had unbounded confidence in Bridgespan's future potential to help donors and social sector organizations dramatically increase their impact. And that is in fact what Bridgespan has succeeded in doing! Now that Bridgespan is 17 years old, it is abundantly clear to everyone that Bridgespan has more than justified that confidence and indeed exceeded even the highest expectations. It has successfully served hundreds of individual nonprofits small as well as large, and dozens of foundations and individual philanthropists. Moreover, its client engagements have been drawn on extensively in order to widen to a much broader public the reach of the strategic and problem-solving knowledge it has gained from serving those organizations and individuals. Indeed, Bridgespan's talented consultants have generated an impressive, ever-growing mine of evidence-based, highly useful, insight-filled, pragmatic knowledge for America's civic sector (among which knowledge is Give Smart, which I had the privilege and pleasure of co-writing with Tom Tierney).

We have collaborated with Bridgespan on numerous projects involving philanthropy, nonprofits, and leadership. They are an innovative, dynamic group that applies creative thinking to social sector problem solving. Recently, the Case Foundation teamed up with Bridgespan to help bring its Leading for Impact program to the D.C. Metro area to work with some 50 social sector organizations to enhance their performance.

We had participated in business planning before our relationship with Bridgespan began in 2005 but collaborating with them was like going from watching TV on an old black and white set to technicolor. They've helped us develop six national or state plans, becoming true partners in our work, not just consultants. Bridgespan's expertise, experience and business acumen has helped us look at the Child Welfare System very differently. They've consistently encouraged us to think deeper about our mission, driving us to have much greater impact in helping our country's most vulnerable children and families—especially helping young adults aging out of the foster care system—live successfully.

Bridgespan has been a critical partner for 15 years, helping the Harlem Children's Zone turn ideas into innovative programs to help thousands of children and families. Much of what we have done has been without precedent; Bridgespan was invaluable in helping us move through uncharted territory. Through their thoughtful counsel, we rolled out initiatives that are now models for organizations across the country.

There are a few moments in the history of any organization that its leaders can point to and say, 'This changed our trajectory.' Working with Bridgespan has been, for EdFuel, one those times.

Leading for Impact has elevated the level of our dialogue as a management team five to tenfold.

The Bridgespan team worked with me and my team to develop and lead a nine-month process that engaged hundreds of internal and external stakeholders, created a new sense of shared leadership and accountability, and resulted in a new organizational strategy that should lead to sustainable impact for many years to come. Their team analyzed the data and discovered trends that we had not seen. Equally importantly, they helped us negotiate complex interpersonal dynamics and make a series of hard decisions that will serve us well.

Bridgespan strikes a rare balance in their client engagement work to drive impact. They are brutal in the rigor of their analysis and utterly humane in their execution.

For nearly a decade, Bridgespan has been an invaluable partner in helping to make the critically important work of NCLR and our Affiliate network more focused, more strategic, and more impactful. The caliber of their staff and the quality of their analysis and thinking have been consistently exceptional.