Small organizations don't need three specialists. They need one person willing to learn the whole thing, then build something your team can run without me, without code, and without paying for five tools that don't talk to each other.
The hours your team loses copying information between places, chasing status, and redoing work that was already done once.
Most small organizations pay for several overlapping tools and use a fraction of each. Usually the fix is fewer things, better connected.
Whatever I build, you can run yourself. No code, no dependency on me, and instructions written for whoever inherits it.
Sound familiar
Our client information is spread across a dozen places and nobody's sure which one is current.
We still do invoicing and follow-up by hand, and things slip when we get busy.
Everyone does it a little differently, so training someone new takes months.
We pay for a lot of software and I'm not convinced we need most of it.
If you recognized one of those, the problem usually isn't the software. It's that nobody has had time to sit down and decide how the work should actually move.
What I do
Most projects start in one column and end up touching all three, because a broken process is rarely just a broken tool.
Getting your organization off spreadsheets, group chats and what's in people's heads, and onto something that survives someone leaving.
Connecting what you already pay for, and building the small tools that take over the work nobody should be doing by hand.
Making the work make sense to the people outside it: your audience, your funders, your staff, and anyone searching for you.
How it works
Every project starts with a conversation about what's actually going wrong. Price depends on the size of the job and the size of your organization. Ask, and I'll give you a number quickly rather than after four calls.
I map how work really moves through your organization, not how the org chart says it does. You get a written summary of where it breaks, what that costs you, and what to fix first. Useful on its own, and an honest way to find out whether you need me for anything more.
A working system, set up for how you actually operate. One place your client and project information lives, a hiring process, an automation that ends a recurring manual task, or a small tool that handles research and reporting. Training for your team and written instructions are part of the job, not an add-on.
A standing monthly arrangement for organizations that need someone running operations but can't justify hiring full time. I handle the systems, the vendors, the reporting, and the things that keep slipping, for a fraction of a salary.
About
Most of what I know about running a small organization, I learned by running one badly first. I started a landscaping business and spent a year and a half as its entire back office: scheduling, routing, sourcing, quoting, invoicing, chasing payments. All of it held together by memory and a phone. Everything I build now is shaped by having been the person who couldn't find the thing.
Since then I've rebuilt how a music rights licensing company stores and finds its catalog, set up hiring for a biotech startup, and put automated workflows into small company operations. Before that I spent two years doing search and online reputation work for larger clients, managed vendors and wrote contracts for a design firm, and produced live events every month for five years, which is where you learn to explain something clearly to a room that didn't ask.
Fit
Contact
Email me a few sentences about your organization and what isn't working. I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person and roughly what it would cost, usually within a day.
patricktgolden@gmail.com