Across the social-impact sector, it's easy for strategy to become abstract, a collection of frameworks, deadlines, and deliverables detached from the people those decisions ultimately affect. Human-Centered Design (HCD) helps us close that gap. Rather than being a universal trend across the consulting world, HCD has become a defining feature of SOAR's own approach to problem-solving. It allows us to build solutions that not only meet organizational goals, but also improve the lives of the people those organizations serve.

Why Human-Centered Design Works for SOAR

At its core, HCD is about empathy and engagement. It starts with listening, to clients, their staff, and the communities they impact. We run interviews, focus groups, and stakeholder workshops not as a procedural step, but as the foundation for understanding the realities driving an organization's challenges and opportunities.

By applying this methodology, SOAR ensures that each strategy or system we design reflects the lived experience of those most affected by it. It's a process of Inspire, Ideate, Implement that turns collaboration into measurable change.

This approach has shaped every division of SOAR, from Grants & Fundraising to Finance & Accounting, and Strategy & Operations. While the tools may vary, the principle remains constant: people first.

A Case in Point: Gatesway Foundation

When SOAR first partnered with the Gatesway Foundation, the organization faced deep operational challenges, unclear strategic direction, outdated housing infrastructure, and strained financial processes.

Through dozens of staff and stakeholder discussions, SOAR's team mapped Gatesway's pain points, aspirations, and daily realities. We worked side-by-side with leadership and frontline staff to co-design solutions that reflected not just what needed to change, but why it mattered.

This HCD approach led to tangible outcomes:

• Financial Empowerment: With SOAR's guidance, Gatesway began closing its books by the 10th of each month and using real-time dashboards to inform decisions. This transparency restored trust between staff and board, enabling stronger accountability.
• Strategic Renewal: Together, we developed a clear long-term vision anchored in community integration, leading to new partnerships, modernized housing, and expanded employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
• Strengthened Grants & Fundraising: Using the knowledge and perspective gained by listening, SOAR helped define a new vision for Gatesway's future. Using this new vision, SOAR pursued relationships with funders and applied for grants on behalf of Gatesway. With over $7 million raised so far, a new story is being unlocked for the organization.

Each success began with people, not spreadsheets or systems, and ended in sustainable, measurable transformation.

Why It Matters

In a consulting environment often focused on efficiency and deliverables, HCD reminds us that innovation begins with empathy. It transforms engagements from transactional to transformational, creating solutions that people believe in because they helped build them.

Whether redesigning financial systems, managing complex grants portfolios, or facilitating cross-sector partnerships, we remain guided by a simple truth: when you start with people, sustainable change follows.

Looking Ahead

Human-Centered Design has helped SOAR redefine what effective consulting looks like, not by claiming to transform an entire industry, but by demonstrating its impact one partnership at a time.

From Gatesway to the dozens of nonprofits, agencies, and local governments we support, the principle remains constant: meaningful change begins with understanding people's needs, aspirations, and stories. That's the heart of our work, and the reason HCD will continue to guide SOAR's path forward.