Cascadia Advisory Group

Practitioners Advising Practitioners

The Cascadia Advisory Group (CAG) was created in 2003 to provide assistance and training to organizations in the community development finance industry. Consulting services under this program are primarily provided by Executive Director Shaw Canale, Associate Director Kathleen Burton, former Executive Director Patty Grossman, and Paige Chapel, co-founder and former managing director of Shorebank Advisory Services.

Assistance and training are provided in the following areas.

Institution Design

We help you:

• Identify and assess market opportunities
• Design new or merged institutions
• Evaluate institutional sustainability and develop funding strategies
• Launch operations

Program Design

We help you:

• Explore and assess new market opportunities
• Develop new products or lines of business
• Develop business plans and capital-raising documents and strategies

Executive Coaching and Mentoring

We help you:

• Release steam and overcome the isolation of leadership
• Identify leadership challenges
• Develop strategies for addressing those challenges
• Improve your leadership skills and style

Infrastructure Development

We help you:

• Assess the adequacy of current systems
• Evaluate and purchase more efficient financial, portfolio management, and servicing systems
• Reduce overhead and maintenance by providing backroom services for accounting and financial management, portfolio management, and investor relations

Board Development

We help you:

• Develop tools to build a skills-based board
• Maximize board performance
• Create the policies and infrastructure for effective decision-making
• Train board members to effectively use and interpret management reporting tools

Please see Cascadia's Winter newsletter to learn about CAG's first project, a new business loan fund for immigrants and refugees in Seattle.

For more information on the Advisory Group, please contact Shaw Canale at (206) 447-9226 ext. 104 or shaw@cascadiafund.org.