When a women veterans nonprofit reached a pivotal moment—ready to grow, but determined not to grow too fast or in the wrong direction—Wills & Martin led a comprehensive consumer-centric study to anchor the organization’s next chapter. By listening deeply to women veterans and donors, then translating their lived experience into an actionable growth blueprint, the firm helped the organization move forward with clarity, trust, and a pilot plan designed to learn before scaling.
The challenge
Women veterans are too often served through systems that were never designed with them in mind. Support is fragmented. Peer connection is rare. Trust is easily lost. And for many, the most important needs are not just physical—they are emotional, social, spiritual, financial, and rooted in belonging.
The organization was preparing to expand its Women of Valor Network and programming—but leadership wanted to ensure growth protected the heart of the mission.
They were navigating questions that many purpose-driven organizations face at scale:
- How do we grow without losing the soul of the organization?
- How do we build programming women veterans will actually use and trust?
- How do we avoid becoming another service provider in an already crowded landscape?
- How do we test new ideas responsibly before committing to national scale?
They didn’t want “more activity.” They wanted more impact—with credibility and care.
Strategic approach: From good intentions to real evidence
Wills & Martin designed this engagement around a simple belief:
The people you serve should be the ones who shape what you build.
Rather than jumping straight to expansion, Wills & Martin helped the nonprofit treat the pilot as a learning engine—a way to reduce fear, protect trust, and move forward through evidence instead of pressure.
The work combined listening, research, synthesis, and strategic planning to turn stakeholder voice into a usable roadmap for real-world growth.
Key moves included:
- Listening to women veterans: Interviews created space for veterans to name needs, frustrations, barriers, and what truly creates safety, belonging, and trust.
- Validating patterns with data: A 29-question survey of 157 women veterans confirmed themes at scale—ensuring the strategy reflected consistent patterns, not isolated stories.
- Including donor perspectives: Donor interviews clarified what inspires confidence, what builds trust, and what donors need to understand in order to invest in long-term impact.
- Building persona frameworks: Wills & Martin translated findings into women veteran personas and donor personas—so every program decision could stay anchored in real people, not abstract audiences.
- Designing a pilot blueprint: Recommendations were intentionally built to be testable—so the organization could learn, improve, and refine before scaling widely.
Capabilities applied
This engagement brought Wills & Martin’s core capabilities together in a way that honored both mission and practicality.
- Consumer-centric research & listening: We used interviews and survey research to elevate lived experience as a strategic input—not a marketing exercise.
- Strategic planning for mission-driven growth: We helped translate insight into a clear growth blueprint with priorities, sequencing, and decision clarity.
- Program design & stakeholder experience architecture: We mapped what women veterans actually need—from peer connection to whole-health navigation—and designed implications for services and programming.
- Pilot planning & risk reduction: Wills & Martin developed a pilot model that was time-bound, reversible, and designed to produce evidence—so the organization could move forward with confidence rather than pressure.
- Messaging + donor clarity: We supported tone, messaging, and positioning that reflects dignity and truth—so both women veterans and donors could see themselves honestly in the story.
What we did with the leadership team
Working through a focused process of research, synthesis, and strategic design, Wills & Martin:
- Conducted interviews with women veterans to capture what builds trust, what creates disengagement, and what belonging truly requires.
- Surveyed 157 women veterans using a 29-question instrument to validate needs and prioritize what matters most.
- Interviewed donors to understand what makes impact feel real, credible, and worthy of investment.
- Built persona frameworks that humanize the work and keep the strategy grounded in lived experience, including:
- younger peer-seeker / resilient survivor
- midlife professional balancer
- isolated senior veteran
- donor archetypes centered on motivation and giving style
- Delivered an actionable roadmap and recommendations designed for immediate translation into pilot components such as:
- a digital community hub concept
- a whole-health resource library and vetted referral model
- women-led service delivery emphasis
- peer-to-peer connection as a foundational infrastructure
- storytelling design rooted in identity and life stage
- stakeholder testing loop to validate messaging and experience design
- Designed a pilot blueprint intended to reduce fear of overcommitment by making the pilot limited, place-based, and learning-driven.
Results: From uncertainty to clarity, trust, and a path forward
Within a relatively short period, the organization moved from “We know we need to grow” to “We know what to build, what to test, and how to do it with integrity.”
Emerging outcomes included:
- Clear direction grounded in women veterans’ real voice, ensuring the next phase reflects what women veterans need—not what systems assume they need.
- A pilot plan designed to learn before scaling, giving the organization a safe, responsible way to test programming components and build evidence.
- Strengthened mission alignment, preserving the nonprofit’s unique role as a connector and trust-builder—not a duplicator.
- Stronger donor confidence and narrative clarity, with insights that support more measurable, credible storytelling about impact.
This work now serves as a template for Wills & Martin’s consumer-centric strategy engagements—where we help organizations build growth plans that are not only executable, but worthy of the people they exist to serve.