Purpose-built for the work most consulting firms walk away from.
Innovative Insights is an advancement consulting firm that embeds with leadership teams to clarify priorities, build a sustainable operating rhythm, and stay until the new way of operating becomes the default. Everything else about the firm follows from that.
We do things differently.
About us
Most advancement consulting ends when the work actually begins. For decades, advancement consulting has worked the same way. A firm comes in, assesses the situation, writes the strategy, delivers the report, and exits. The recommendations are usually sound. The teams that receive them are usually capable. But six months later, the team is operating more or less the way it was before. The recommendations sit in a binder. The new way of working never quite takes hold.
Innovative Insights was built to address exactly that. Not by writing different reports, but by staying alongside the team long enough for new operating habits to become the default. Our model is embedded. Our methodology is structured. And our team brings expertise across advancement, technology, and organizational coaching that most firms split across separate vendors.
Four things that shape every engagement.
WHO WE WORK WITH
We stay through implementation.
Most consulting ends with a report and a handoff. Ours ends when the new way of working holds. The average engagement runs longer than twelve months, and every client we have worked with has extended.
The team you meet is the team you get.
There is no senior partner closing the deal and handing you off to a junior team. The same people who understand your culture and your team dynamics are the ones in the room when the work gets hard. That continuity is part of why every client has extended.
We use real Lean and Agile methodology, adapted for advancement.
Visual work management. Sprints. Retrospectives. Adapted for the rhythm of an advancement team. A research sweep of every major advancement consulting firm found zero firms using formal Lean or Agile methodology. We are the firm that does.
We bring three kinds of expertise to one engagement.
Most advancement consultants don't know technology. Most technology consultants haven't worked inside an advancement office. Most operational coaches haven't navigated a board meeting. Our team brings all three. Clients don't have to hire three firms and translate between them.
The people doing the work.
THE TEAM
Jay Mewhirter
Co-Founder / Managing Director
Jay co-founded Innovative Insights and leads the firm. Before launching it, he spent decades running large operating teams inside major financial institutions and built two enterprise business improvement teams from the ground up. He has been the executive who hires consultants, the consultant who delivers the recommendations, and the leader who has to live with the result months later. He brings all three perspectives to every engagement.
Abby Palsic
Fundraising Practice Director
Abby leads Innovative Insights' fundraising practice. The advancement world is the world she came from: over 20 years inside universities, including time leading advancement teams. She has worked at every level of that world, from front-line fundraising to senior leadership, and it shows in how quickly she reads a client's team. She speaks the language of a gift officer, a campaign-pressured VP, and a data-focused operations lead, often in the same conversation.
Doug Huffman
Agile Practice Director
Doug leads Innovative Insights' Lean and Agile practice. He has spent more than two decades adapting Lean and Agile methods to teams that need to work differently, including time running the entire Lean and Agile practice inside a major organization, where he taught other teams how to actually adopt these frameworks. He brings the same approach to advancement teams: structured cadence, visible work tracking, and review rhythms that help an overloaded team focus.
Jay Mewhirter
Co-Founder / Managing Director
Jay is an empowering business and technology executive with decades of experience successfully leading and executing complex business initiatives.
Abby Palsic
Fundraising Practice Director
Abby has 20+ years of fundraising experience she combines with her deep understanding of program management and design to drive breakthrough solutions for her clients that enable them to elevate performance.
What we believe.
The plan is not the point. What the team does after the plan is.
A team has not changed until how it works has changed.
Most advancement teams do not need more strategy. They need more rhythm.
Change happens in the room, not in the report.
Changing how a team works takes the time it takes. We stay for it.
The best outcome of an early conversation is not always an engagement. Sometimes it is clarity about what kind of help you actually need.
Let's talk about your team.
No pitch. No pressure. Just a working conversation about where you are and what would actually help.
