Our Story

Civitas Strategies is a leading national management consulting firm founded by Gary Romano in 2009. We are dedicated to revitalizing forgotten businesses and supporting the stabilization of industries in need across the nation. Our primary focus is on providing business coaching and training at scale, and empowering small enterprises with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive. As we navigate the post-pandemic landscape, Civitas Strategies is actively involved in supporting recovering economies and developing innovative resources and systems to ensure long-term sustainability for small businesses.

What sets us apart from competitors is our unique value proposition: 

1. Niche Expertise: We specialize in supporting small to mid-sized businesses and mission-driven organizations, an often overlooked and underserved segment.

2. Scale and Impact: Our products and services are utilized by tens of thousands of organizations, impacting millions of families and children in communities across the country.

3. Measurable Results: Our work has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in new resources and efficiency gains for our clients.

4. Accessibility: We offer many of our products freely, eliminating financial barriers to best practices and leveraging public-serving investments.

5. Mission-Driven Adaptability: We proudly embrace our mission-driven philosophy, leveraging our unique for-profit status to remain agile and uninhibited, empowering us to generously share our innovations and intellectual property for the greater good.

Throughout our history, Civitas Strategies has achieved significant milestones and recognition:

• Founded in 2009 by Gary Romano, leveraging his extensive experience in public and private sector planning.

• Completed the Million Family and Child Challenge in less than three years, exceeding our goal of positively impacting more than a million families and children.

• Renowned for its effectiveness, our recruitment approach, Lean Recruitment, impacts organizations worldwide.

• Selected for the prestigious Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses National Cohort in 2019, accelerating our growth and expansion plans.

• Played a critical role in supporting child care businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring their resilience and continued operation.

Our vision is to empower vital organizations to thrive while making a positive impact on families and the economy. At the heart of our endeavors, we diligently weave equity into every aspect of our work, fostering inclusivity, diversity, and fairness to empower and uplift all those we touch. Sustainability and philanthropy are integral to our values, as we maintain a zero-impact operation and contribute a minimum of 15% of our net profit through cash donations or pro-bono work each year.

Our services primarily cater to national and state governmental agencies, nonprofits, and philanthropic leaders dedicated to supporting marginalized communities and families.

We have received recognition for our innovative approaches, winning the Massachusetts Municipal Association Kenneth Packard Innovation Award and securing three U.S. Department of Education Innovation awards.

At Civitas Strategies, we offer a comprehensive range of services designed to empower mission-driven organizations and enhance their effectiveness:

Business Coaching & Training

Our Business Coaching & Training services are built upon three key principles: Increasing Revenue, Decreasing Costs, and Mitigating Risk.  

Our proven coaching approach has empowered thousands of medium, small, and micro businesses to make the best decisions for their individual needs as they work toward building organization resiliency and sustainability.

 Our focused content and processes are offered as informational webinars, interactive group coaching sessions, and individualized, one-on-one coaching sessions.

Civitas Strategies also provides scalable coaching systems and implementation advisement, trainings, and professional development for business coaches and direct provider coaching on specialized topics. Our responsive and relevant approach builds coaching networks and capacity as well as strengthens systems.

Learn more about our Business Coaching & Training Services.

Developing and implementing intentional and relevant strategy is the key to successfully navigating organizational challenges and supporting healthy growth. Through our work in Organization & Human Strategy, we’ve helped countless organizations put their vision into action. Our collaborative approach is focused on interactive planning and strategy developed with, not for, organizations. The result is an actionable, customized, strategy that works for you.

We believe that strategy needs are not one-size-fits-all, and as such our approach is designed to match the unique needs of your organization, regardless of size and the challenges you face. We’ve been able to help some of the smallest and largest nonprofits and other public-serving organizations chart new strategic plans, envision improved paths forward, identify and fill their talent needs, and build their overall organizational capacity.

 Learn more about our Organization & Human Strategy services.

We are undertaking new projects that utilize AI and web-based technologies to better service businesses across the nation. Our innovations are grounded in the belief that the human touch is critical to success and focus on leveraging people's time for more personal interaction. Additionally, all our innovation initiatives focus on solutions that can be cost-effectively deployed at scale.

Learn more about our Innovation services.

We provide evaluation services to organizations looking to improve their outcomes quickly and focus their resources on efforts that deliver the greatest results. Our rapid feedback mechanisms allow programs to make informed decisions and adjustments, resulting in enhanced effectiveness.

Learn more about our Evaluation services.