The Change Up Group

The Change Up Group · Los Angeles

Better organizations unlock possibilities for people.

Organizational assessments and strategic planning workshops for purpose-driven businesses, nonprofits, foundations, and complex organizations.

We help you see clearly where you stand, agree on where you’re going, and build the path in between. Is this you?

  • Your team works hard, but priorities keep competing.
  • Your leaders don’t fully agree on what comes next.
  • Your systems, data, or finances haven’t kept up with how you’ve grown.
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Kara Steffen, founder of The Change Up Group, smiling, arms crossed, outdoors
Kara SteffenFounder & CEOMeet Kara

Where change begins

The first step toward what’s next is understanding where you are.

Organizations are complex. Even highly successful ones develop blind spots.

Processes evolve without intention. Responsibilities overlap. Technology becomes fragmented. Financial information becomes difficult to interpret. Teams develop workarounds to compensate for systems that no longer serve them. And because leaders are immersed in the daily work of running their organizations, it can be difficult to see how these challenges connect, or what they may be preventing the organization from achieving.

Before you can determine what needs to change, you need to understand what’s actually happening. That’s where we begin: we look beyond individual symptoms to the relationships among people, processes, systems, resources, and priorities.

Sound familiar? Your organization may be experiencing:

  • Unreliable or inconsistent reporting
  • Disconnected systems and duplicate information
  • Unclear processes, roles, or accountability
  • Revenue that is difficult to forecast or sustain
  • Leadership bottlenecks and slow decisions
  • Teams working hard without enough organizational visibility
  • Friction across teams, departments, and personnel

These aren’t isolated problems. They’re signs that your people, systems, and strategy have drifted out of alignment with where your organization is trying to go, and the tools you’re relying on to get there.

Recognize some of these? Trace them back to where they start

Two ways to start: an assessment or a workshop.

Assessments and workshops offer distinct value while reinforcing and informing one another. Some organizations start with a workshop, others with a comprehensive assessment, and some choose both to gain a deeper understanding and a clearer path forward.

Organizational Assessments

See the whole picture. Make better decisions.

Our organizational assessments provide an independent, comprehensive view of how your organization functions today, and what it needs to become more effective tomorrow.

Through stakeholder engagement, operational review, leadership interviews, financial and systems analysis, and organizational evaluation, we uncover strengths, identify constraints, and illuminate opportunities that may not be visible from within.

What you gain

  • A clearer understanding of organizational strengths, challenges, and capacity
  • Insight into the underlying causes of operational friction
  • Identification of strategic opportunities and organizational risks
  • Actionable recommendations grounded in your organization’s reality
  • A prioritized roadmap for meaningful progress

The outcome isn’t simply a report. It’s a stronger foundation for leadership decisions.

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Optimal Horizon Workshops

Get aligned on what matters, and where you’re going.

Sometimes the greatest challenge isn’t identifying what’s wrong. It’s building agreement about what comes next.

Our Optimal Horizon Workshops are facilitated strategic planning and leadership alignment sessions. They bring leadership teams, departments, boards, or entire organizations together to examine their current reality, clarify shared priorities, and establish a common direction.

What you gain

  • A shared understanding of current challenges and opportunities
  • Greater clarity about organizational or team priorities
  • Stronger alignment among stakeholders
  • A clear, shared picture of where you’re going next, and the milestones in between
  • Concrete next steps and accountability for moving forward

The outcome is more than a productive conversation. It’s shared direction and a commitment to progress.

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The Optimal Horizon

A clearer vision of what’s possible.

Every organization has an Optimal Horizon: a meaningful next state in which its people, processes, technology, data, and financial resources are better aligned with its purpose.

It isn’t an abstract vision of perfection or a fixed destination. It’s a practical, evolving understanding of what your organization can become, and what it will take to get there. As organizations gain clarity, strengthen their capabilities, and respond to changing circumstances, their horizon evolves.

In practice, that means a plan your leaders agree on, priorities your staff and budget can actually support, and milestones you can measure along the way.

The goal is to build an organization capable of continually becoming what its purpose requires.

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Alignment is the strategy

Meaningful change requires more than identifying what needs to improve.

An organization can have talented people, effective technology, adequate resources, and an ambitious strategy, and still struggle to make progress. Organizational effectiveness depends on how those elements work together.

We help leaders connect organizational purpose to operational reality. That means aligning:

  • People & Leadership

    Roles, responsibilities, culture, decision-making, and organizational capacity.

  • Processes & Operations

    How work gets done, where friction occurs, and how teams coordinate.

  • Technology & Data

    The systems, information, and tools that support effective decisions and daily work.

  • Finance & Resources

    The financial visibility, resource allocation, and sustainability needed to support organizational priorities.

  • Strategy & Direction

    A shared understanding of what matters most and what progress should look like.

When these dimensions are aligned, organizations become more capable, adaptable, and effective. And the people who depend on them benefit.

From insight to action

Our approach: Assess, Align, Build, Strengthen.

  1. 01

    Assess

    We investigate the organization’s current reality through assessment, stakeholder engagement, and careful analysis. We identify what is working, what is not, and what may be standing in the way of progress.

  2. 02

    Align

    We help leadership and teams establish shared priorities, define a meaningful Optimal Horizon, and develop a realistic strategy for moving toward it.

  3. 03

    Build

    When additional support is needed, we help translate strategy into action: strengthening systems, processes, financial operations, and organizational capabilities.

  4. 04

    Strengthen

    We support the development of internal capacity, accountability, and adaptability so improvements can be sustained long after an engagement ends.

You don’t have to engage us for every stage.

Some clients need an independent assessment. Others need a facilitated process to establish direction. Some choose to partner with us through implementation. Our goal is to help your organization move forward with the clarity and capacity it needs, whether or not we’re the ones doing the implementation.

Practical expertise when you’re ready to build

When the path forward is clear, we can help you build it.

Strategy becomes meaningful when it changes how an organization works. For organizations seeking additional support, we offer targeted consulting, implementation, and advisory services, including fractional leadership, across four connected work areas.

These capabilities inform our assessments and make our recommendations practical. Whether we’re helping you implement recommendations or preparing your internal team to lead the work, our focus remains the same: strengthening your organization’s ability to reach its goals.

  • Organizational Strategy & Alignment

    Understand how work actually gets done, clarify responsibilities, strengthen leadership, and build the operating model required for growth.

  • Revenue Strategy & Growth

    Connect ambitious revenue goals to a practical strategy, visible pipeline, reliable data, and clear accountability.

  • Data, Technology & Operations

    Build an integrated technology and information environment that makes the organization easier to understand and run.

  • Finance & Accounting

    Create accurate financial operations and the strategic visibility leaders need to plan and decide confidently.

The assessment determines what makes sense. The organization decides what comes next.

Who we work with

Different organizations. Shared challenges.

We work with purpose-driven businesses, nonprofits, foundations, and complex organizations navigating growth, transition, operational complexity, leadership challenges, and changing expectations. The circumstances may differ, but the fundamental questions are often the same.

We help organizations answer those questions, and use the answers to move forward.

Who We Work With
  • Are we organized to accomplish what matters most?
  • Do our people have the clarity, tools, and support they need?
  • Are our systems and resources aligned with our priorities?
  • What should we preserve, what needs to change, and what becomes possible if we get it right?

What clients say

  • The Change Up Group brings both strategic vision and hands-on expertise to our fundraising efforts. They’ve supported everything from development planning and donor communications to data management and day-to-day execution, giving our team the capacity and structure to focus on our mission.

    Jess WeissbuchExecutive Director, Brave Trails

  • They held our hand through the move to a new database and streamlined our operations so we can now track our money from ask to renew and every point in between. We are able to present clear Financial Statements to the Board of Directors, and we no longer have to stress about our annual audit.

    Madonna CacciatoreFormer Executive Director, LA Pride

  • Kara and her team cut through the clutter and noise to clean up our donor data and created a plan that has allowed us to scale up our fundraising operations, and prepare for a successful Capital Campaign using data we can now trust and verify. Our Development and Finance Departments are in sync, and operating better than ever.

    Bill McDermottCampaign Director, Project Angel Food

Client stories

All client stories

  • Nonprofit

    From competing numbers to a shared Optimal Horizon

    A new executive director inherited finances no one could reconcile, despite several outside consultants. The problem wasn’t anyone’s competence: no one owned the whole system. An assessment and an Optimal Horizon Workshop gave staff, consultants and the board one map and one plan, and the organization went on to its strongest revenue year.

  • Nonprofit

    From a reconciliation question to a strategic roadmap

    It started as a narrow question about processing gifts and reconciling them with finance. Following the evidence led to a board-level conversation about capacity, then a full organizational assessment. Capable people had been compensating for systems built for an earlier horizon, and leadership now has a phased plan to fix the structure.

  • For-profit

    Custom software built around how the business actually works

    A family-owned commercial contractor had invested in sophisticated job costing, but leads, estimates and follow-ups still lived in a patchwork of tools, and an off-the-shelf CRM rollout by another vendor had failed. We mapped the full customer and job lifecycle, then designed and built a custom CRM around it, connected to the company’s job-costing system.

Trusted by organizations navigating meaningful change

  • Los Angeles LGBT Center
  • Project Angel Food
  • LA Pride
  • GLAAD
  • GLSEN
  • Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services
  • East West Players
  • OUTWORDS
  • ONE Archives Foundation
  • A Window Between Worlds
  • Women In Film
  • MISS Foundation
  • Awakening Recovery
  • Connections for Children
  • The Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation
  • Camp Brave Trails
  • A Community of Friends
  • 19 Entertainment
  • Food Forward
  • The Asphalt Jungle
  • FosterAll

A fresh perspective can change what’s possible.

Sometimes you know something isn’t working, but you can’t quite identify why. Sometimes your organization is performing well, but you sense it could be capable of more. And sometimes your team simply needs the space, structure, and perspective to agree on where to go next.

Wherever you are, meaningful progress begins with a clearer understanding of the present and a shared vision for the future. Let’s work out your next step together.

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