The Texas Association of Community Development Corporations engaged Jennifer Moriarty to facilitate a strategic planning retreat for community developers in Texas. While the group was relatively small, the task-at-hand was not.

Before the retreat, Jennifer took the time to meet with me to prepare me for the two-day process and to answer any of my questions. I felt like we worked together to develop a list of desired outcomes and deliverables for the project. I felt very comfortable going into the planning process with the participants.

During the sessions, Jennifer clearly led the participants through various exercises to get them to think critically and strategically about their plan. She was very careful and articulate in making sure the participants took ownership for their end product, but led us through a process that helped distill the essence of our thoughts into a clear message.

Jennifer seamlessly navigated a myriad of personalities in the room, encouraged the quieter participants to become more vocal, and engaged everyone in the process. The planning process she led us through was both interactive and introspective as we thought through our situations and developed our plan for moving forward.

The final product Jennifer produced was a document that we have taken and been able to amend as needed. However, the real benefit of the strategic plan for us was not the final product, it was the relationships that we forged during the process and the buy-in that participants have of the vision that we created. The vision we created reflects our thoughts and deliberations and one that Jennifer helped guide us to recognize for ourselves.

It was the beginning of a new school year, the fall of 2012. My School Council sat down to begin the task of developing a five-year Strategic Plan.  We looked at each other with perplexed glances. Where do we begin?  How do we make this a collaborative effort with our school community to include, teachers, staff, parents, and administration? How do we keep a community of interested members focused? It seemed to be a daunting task.

One of my School Council members suggested we call an expert who can get us on the right path and lead the community to developing the Plan. We did just that.  We called Jennifer Moriarty. A burden was lifted. We had work to do but we were guided with precision and focus to get the task done. All members were included in the process and the very broad domains and issues were strategically pared down to the important points. Ultimately, a Five-year Strategic Plan was developed in an efficient manner and with consensus. We could not have thanked Jennifer enough for her organizational skills, people skills, expertise and overall efforts.

When the San Antonio Independent School Board of Trustees requested a team-building and goal-setting workshop, I explored options outside of the educational arena. Jennifer Moriarty had a reputation as a people person and consensus-builder in the business community, and after hiring her to lead our group, I can say she was born to bring people together – no matter their background, experiences or diversity of the organization. Jennifer helped our group achieve results by ensuring we remained focused on ideas for improved growth, management and, ultimately, success. Her communication with myself & Board President, her diligent research to better understand our district’s challenges and the methodologies she employed were professional, personal and extremely effective. Not only did Jennifer deliver results, she did so through a lively process that kept us engaged and on task. Her combined skills, talents and personality made for a feel-good, successful and sustainable experience.

Jennifer’s passionate and masterful facilitation of our 2012 AccessAbility Fest workshop paid big dividends in planning and running a successful event in 2013!  The early preparation yielded great results for this monumental feat, and it was all due to Jennifer’s understanding of our committee tasks and the thorough walk thru of actions and planning a year-long calendar of activities. Jennifer’s energy and expertise ignited new interest and infused enthusiasm in each participant as she kept us on task as we discussed our commitment, givens, current reality – of both our group and the project’s success – and our victory. It was an amazing joy to go through this process! Well done, Jennifer . . . and many than

Jennifer Moriarty was the key to making St. PJ’s Planning Retreat productive, interactive and inspirational. Because she spent so much time preparing for the meeting, she was able to lead the discussion, ask the right questions and elicit the involvement of everyone in the room.  Just as importantly, she has a unique planning process that enabled us to map out our annual goals and a basic action plan for achieving them in a fun and interactive session. Jennifer put us on course for a record year as everyone left the meeting energized and excited about the Home’s future and prepared to turn our vision into a reality. As a result, we recently celebrated St. PJ’s “victory” as we expanded our services and moved to a second location enabling us to help more children in crisis than ever before.

Jennifer facilitated excellent discussion during our 2011 and 2012 Board Retreats, that resulted in the development of short-term and long-term strategic initiatives. She was able to direct conversation, identify key goals, and produce a compelling deliverable that organized our priorities for the subsequent year.

Our new plan was spot on! In 2011, Jennifer helped me and my team set a new course by reworking our strategic plan to address the fast changing environment we found ourselves in. The resulting plan was well thought out and actionable, as well as provided an effective way to hold the team accountable for future results.  Thank you, Jennifer for your leadership, direction and insight – the result not only engaged our team, but those we served in an extraordinary way.

I have worked with a gazillion consultants in my various pursuits over the years. And have routinely declined to provide a “testimonial” when requested, as most do. But this time is different, because Jen Moriarty is so different. There are lots of smart folks out there in the consulting world, especially in philanthropy. But Jennifer is unique to my experience, because of her ability to invoke the very soft side of philanthropy—empathy, patience and the like, with a rare willingness to speak directly and forcefully when that is called for. As a consultant for me at the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, she became the de facto leader of our effort in Autism, teaming wonderfully with our Manager of Initiatives and the myriad of other voices and opinions that have been brought to this effort. In sum, she is remarkably smooth, but unafraid to call balls and strikes. She is special. And has done and is doing a special job for us.

Jennifer Moriarty conscientiously supported our organization through its strategic
planning process with much thought, care, and exceptional expertise. She
developed and designed a two-part strategy to achieve our organizational goals.
The first phase consisted of her facilitating multiple engagement sessions to
assist our organization gain a broader understanding of the needs for our LGBT
community stakeholders as well as increase support for The Center. As part of
the second phase, Jennifer used the data collected from the initial sessions along
with involvement/engagement from our board to complete our three-year strategic
plan with year four and five stretch goals. Her ability to conceptualize, strategize,
and ask those hard questions was instrumental in helping Pride Center San
Antonio implement a plan toward stability and to its next growth phase.