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The Challenge Facing Grassroots Nonprofits
If you lead a small nonprofit in Chicago, you already know the job description has no bottom to it. Alongside the work you set out to do, there is payroll to run, a grant report due Friday, and a compliance requirement you learned about only because something had already gone wrong.
Most grassroots organizations cannot afford a full operations staff, so they build one a piece at a time — a grant writer for a particular proposal, a bookkeeper for the monthly close, a friend with IT experience for the email accounts. Every one of them is capable, and every one is working from a partial view of your organization. That leaves you in the middle, translating between them, and it is one of the most common reasons a promising organization stalls out when it should be growing up.
We have watched good leaders carry this burden alone, but it's a structural problem that can be solved.
How We Help
Brandl Operations provides the operational support larger nonprofits take for granted — finance, fundraising, human resources, compliance, evaluation, and grant administration — coordinated through a single executive partner who knows your organization well. When a project calls for a specialist, we bring one in and manage that relationship ourselves, so you are never the one holding the pieces together.
Before founding Brandl Operations, Jack Brandl served as Executive Director of a Chicago-based youth-serving organization and led it through this exact transition.
Who We Serve
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Executive Directors, Founders, and CEOs of small to mid-sized nonprofits
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Grassroots and community-based organizations, particularly those rooted in disinvested neighborhoods
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Boards seeking stability, clarity, and operational confidence
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Foundations, governments, and institutions supporting cohorts or portfolios of grassroots nonprofits
Partner Spotlight
The Brandl Operations Difference
We are former nonprofit executive directors — not generic consultants.
Our approach is grounded in real leadership experience, sector knowledge, and a deep understanding of how nonprofits actually function day-to-day.
Instead of fragmented vendors and one-off fixes, we offer integrated support that saves time, reduces cost, and creates long-term capacity.
Meet the Founder
Jack Brandl, MSW, LSW, has spent more than a decade inside grassroots nonprofits — most recently as Executive Director of Boxing Out Negativity, where he raised millions and helped grow a beloved West Side program into a multi-site youth development and violence prevention powerhouse.
He started Brandl Operations on a simple belief: nonprofits change lives, but too many stay small because no one ever showed them how to build the systems underneath the work.
Today, Jack works alongside founders and directors, many of them building their organization around a full-time job, to put real infrastructure behind the mission.
Work with us!
Our consulting partnerships are:
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Fair and aligned with organizational capacity
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Save time, money, and leadership bandwidth
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Flexible as your organization grows
When you win, we win.
Let's Connect
Request a 30-minute free consultation to ask questions and determine if a partnership is right for your organization.