The Faith First Project® is built to help you overcome.

Most organizations in the public and nonprofit sectors do not fail for lack of conviction. They fail in the gap between a strategy that was agreed in a meeting and an operation that has to deliver it with the staff, budget, and political constraints actually on hand. Leaders inherit competing priorities, thin documentation, uneven performance expectations, and stakeholders who were consulted after the decision rather than before it.

Rev. Smith works in that gap. Engagements begin with an honest assessment of what is actually happening — not what the strategic plan says is happening — and end with structures, documentation, and trained people that continue working after the engagement concludes. That is the measure of success: not the quality of the recommendation, but whether the organization can hold the improvement once the consultant leaves.

Areas of Focus

Organizational assessment and operational redesign — diagnosing where authority, workflow, and accountability have drifted apart, and rebuilding the structure to match the mission.
Leadership development and executive coaching — individual and small-group work with executives, directors, and emerging leaders on judgment, delegation, performance management, and difficult conversations.
Board, staff, and coalition facilitation — structured processes that surface disagreement early and produce decisions a group can actually implement.
Grant, budget, and compliance stewardship — aligning budget, staffing, partner accountability, and reporting around a single set of performance expectations.
Partner and delegate network capacity building — training and documentation support that raises performance across a distributed network rather than at a single site.
Social justice, equity, and civic engagement training — applied curricula on structural inequity, accountability, and community engagement for staff, boards, and public bodies.
Public policy education and community engagement strategy — translating legislative, technical, and social issues into language that residents, elected officials, and funders can each act on.
Faith-based leadership and congregational strategy — governance, ministry structure, and long-range planning for congregations and religious institutions.
Guest lectures, keynotes, and moderated conversations — academic and professional engagements in leadership, public policy, Black Liberation Theology, and the social righteousness of Jesus.

Engagement Formats

Custom workshops and training series, built from the organization's own materials and constraints.
Leadership retreats and strategic planning sessions, facilitated end to end.
One-on-one and small-group executive coaching, on a defined cycle with clear objectives.
Organizational assessments, delivered as a written finding with prioritized recommendations.
Guest lectures and keynotes for colleges, seminaries, civic groups, and professional associations.
Consulting engagements for nonprofits, congregations, public agencies, and mission-driven organizations, ranging from a single intensive to a multi-month partnership.

Workshops and Training Curriculum

Each series is adapted to the audience; the titles below are starting points, not fixed products. The strongest engagement is usually the one where two of these are combined against a real problem the organization is already facing.

Community Organizing
Being Right Is Not Enough · What Winning Looks Like · Working For Free

Crisis Management
How to Eat an Elephant · A Problem vs. a Crisis · The Elephant in Your Room

Leadership Coaching
Evolve Your Game · Assessing Your Team · When Aren't You, You? · The Smartest Person in the Room

Media Strategy
A Story in Three Minutes · You Have One Job · Doing Good, So What?

Organization Assessment
Making Paper, Work · Know Your Product · New Math, Old Money · Got Data. Now What

Policy Planning
Policy 101 · The Politics of Paperwork · Follow the Money · What's In It For You

Social Justice
Come High or Stay Home · It Absolutely Will Not Stop · My Soul Is Prepared, How's Yours?

Youth Justice
Will You Die for Pooky? · The Historic Power of Uncivility · It's Not Their Fault

Why Leaders Need Teaching

Leaders today are expected to navigate rapid technological change, evolving regulation, shifting community expectations, and layered social issues — while holding responsibility for budget, staff, and results. Few have the time to study every new development, evaluate every tool, or translate each challenge into a workable plan.

Rev. Smith's teaching exists to close that gap. Workshops combine rigorous analysis, accessible language, values-based reflection, and action-oriented strategy, so that participants leave with a decision they can make, a document they can use, or a conversation they now know how to hold. Sessions are designed around the organization's actual conditions and are adjusted as those conditions become clear.

“We only know two things: we know what we know, and we know what we don't know. Wisdom is knowing the difference. Intelligence is applying wisdom.”

— Rev. Damon O. Smith

Engaging the Practice

Engagements begin with a conversation about the problem, the people involved, the timeline, and what a successful outcome would look like. From there, Rev. Smith provides a written scope: objectives, deliverables, format, schedule, and cost. Consulting partnerships are typically structured as a defined assessment phase followed by an implementation phase, so that the organization can evaluate the fit before committing to the full engagement.