Fractional COO for Nonprofits

If your nonprofit stops when you take a vacation, you do not have a system. You have a dependency.

I build the infrastructure, compliance safeguards, and leadership capacity your organization needs to scale without breaking. Senior operations leadership, part time, without the six figure overhead.

Book a Call See how I help ↓ 25 Years of Proof →
Brad Wendling at Our Community Pantry, a North Texas Food Bank program
“

Your mission deserves operations that can carry it. I build the systems, scale the programs, and put the infrastructure in place so your team can stop surviving and start leading.

Choose the operational bottleneck keeping you up at night.

🏗️

Growth and Scaling

What works at three sites breaks at fifteen. Your programs grew faster than your systems, and now growth feels like a liability instead of a win.

Address this →
✅

Compliance and Audits

CACFP, SFSP, federal reviews. One finding can cost you the funding the mission runs on. You need safeguards built in, not bolted on after the letter arrives.

Address this →
👥

Staff Capacity

Your team is stretched thin and the knowledge lives in people's heads. When someone walks out the door, the system walks out with them.

Address this →
📊

Governance

Your board needs clear reporting and real visibility, not a scramble the week before the meeting. Good governance starts with operations they can actually see.

Address this →
🌪️

Crisis Readiness

Disasters do not wait for a plan. When the storm hits or the funding shifts, you either operate or you stall. Readiness is built long before the day you need it.

Address this →

Twenty five years of doing the work, not theorizing about it.

The numbers below come from building and running real programs at organizations like North Texas Food Bank, San Antonio Food Bank, and Crossroads Community Services.

25+
Years of nonprofit operations leadership
300+
Program sites built and scaled across Texas
52M+
Pounds of food distributed at system peak
100%
Audit compliance record on federal programs
500+
Partner nonprofits audited and supported

Wendling Nonprofit Consulting provides fractional COO services to nonprofits with budgets between $1M and $10M. Founder Brad Wendling is a nonprofit operations leader with 25 years of experience in food security, federal compliance, and disaster response. Engagements start at $3,000 per month. Based in Houston, Texas, serving organizations nationwide.

Proof of Method

What this looks like in the field.

Two engagements, two different problems, one approach: build the system, then let the results follow.

Growth and Scaling
ProblemA children's nutrition program stuck at a single pilot site, with demand far outpacing what one location could serve.
ActionBuilt the replication model, the site launch playbook, and the operational SOPs a lean team could run without me in the room.
ResultScaled to 300 active distribution sites across 13 counties.
Compliance and Crisis
ProblemFederal nutrition programs under audit pressure, then a pandemic that forced emergency operations overnight.
ActionBuilt the compliance systems, trained the network, and stood up emergency distribution under live conditions.
ResultServed 2,000+ families per event during COVID with zero compliance failures.
A fixed scope place to start

Two weeks from now, you could know exactly what is breaking.

The Operations Audit is a fixed price, two week review of your growth systems, your federal compliance, your staff capacity, your board reporting, and your crisis readiness. You end up with every risk you carry written down, rated by severity, and sequenced into a 90 day fix plan with a name on every line. No retainer required. Run the plan yourself if you want to.

$1,850
One time. Two weeks.
Under six hours of your team's time.
$925 credited toward month one if you bring me on after.
See the Audit Or book a call first →
Days 1 to 6

Intake and interviews. Your documents, and thirty minutes each with up to five of the people who run the work.

Days 7 to 13

Findings and sequencing. Every risk rated by severity and by the cost of doing nothing, then put in the order it should be fixed.

Day 14

Handoff. Sixty minutes to walk the findings and the plan. Board chair welcome. Then the documents are yours.

Resources

The systems, distilled into tools
you can use today.

Twenty five years of operational lessons, built into repeatable frameworks. Start free, and add the deeper toolkits when you are ready to go further.

01

Operations and Growth

The SOP Starter and the Program Scaling Checklist. Build the backbone that lets your programs grow without breaking.

Free Frameworks
02

Compliance and Governance

The Compliance Risk Radar and the Board Reporting Template. See the gaps before an auditor or a board member does.

Free Frameworks
03

Capacity and Leadership

The Staff Capacity Matrix, the New ED Survival Guide, and the Role Design Builder. Build a team and a structure that hold when people move on.

Free Frameworks

Need to solve a specific problem now? The premium toolkits go deeper: CACFP Compliance, Disaster Response, Grant Readiness, and AI Integration, ready to put to work the same day.

Browse Resources →

Ready to build operations that run without you?

Thirty minutes. We find what is breaking and what to do about it. No pitch, no pressure, just an honest conversation.

Book a Call

30 minutes · No obligation · Houston and remote engagements welcome

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