Your people strategy shouldn’t be guesswork.
I bring over 20 years of executive HR and recruiting experience — including a decade leading the function — to mission-driven organizations that need that expertise without the cost of a full-time hire.
Every engagement is scoped to your organization. No packages, no one-size-fits-all retainers.
Sound familiar?
Growth outpaces infrastructure. It happens to good organizations.
Some of the things I’ve heard from leaders at organizations:
“Nobody here actually owns HR — it’s landed on our Finance Manager, which isn’t fair to her.”
“We have a performance problem that should have been documented six months ago.”
“Our handbook hasn’t been touched since we were fifteen people.”
“We keep losing good candidates late in the process and can’t say why.”
“We just promoted three managers who’ve never managed anyone.”
“Our DEI committee has met three times this year and produced nothing.”
“Our HR Director gave notice and we need someone to hold the function until we hire.”
“Our Executive Director is retiring in eight months and the board hasn’t begun to scope the search.”
Why Conscientious
I’ve navigated these tensions from the inside.
Thirty years in and alongside mission-driven organizations — on the program side, in operations, and at the executive level. I understand the funding pressures, the board dynamics, and the culture of organizations where people give more than the job asks.
You work with me directly on every engagement, start to finish.
What we do
Build the people function your mission actually needs.
Engagements are shaped around where you are — a single problem to solve, a system to build, ongoing leadership, or judgment on call.
HR Infrastructure
Handbooks, policies, onboarding, and documentation — built from scratch or rebuilt for the size you are now.
Performance & Employee Relations
Review cycles, performance plans, and the documentation discipline that protects the organization. Complaints, conflict, and investigations handled with rigor and discretion.
Compliance & Risk
Classification, wage and hour, leave and accommodation. Exposure caught before an agency or an attorney finds it.
Compensation & Total Rewards
Pay structures, benefits, market benchmarking, and equity studies that hold up to scrutiny.
Talent Acquisition
Hiring process design, interview training, and full-cycle recruiting at every level, including retained executive search — so hiring stops depending on who happens to be in the room. Retained searches carry a six-month placement guarantee and three coaching sessions for your newly placed leader.
Organizational Design & Culture
Team structure, succession planning, manager coaching, DEI governance, and engagement strategy that changes something.
How we work
Three ways we can work together.
Every engagement starts with a conversation about what’s actually happening, then gets scoped to fit. No standard packages, because no two organizations arrive with the same problem.
Engagement model
Interim or Fractional
Your HR and talent function, held temporarily or on an ongoing basis — full-time or part-time.
- Set days and hours per month
- Ongoing leadership and employee relations
- Active recruiting support
- A seat in leadership conversations
- Continuity as the organization grows
Best for organizations that need the function held — whether for a season or the long run.
Most common
Project
A defined problem, a defined scope, and something built and handed over at the end.
- Fixed scope with clear deliverables
- HR audits, handbooks, and policy builds
- Compensation studies and pay equity reviews
- Hiring process design and rollout
- Documentation your team can run without me
Best for organizations with a specific gap they’ve decided to close.
Engagement model
Advisory
On-call senior judgment when a situation lands and you need a read on it fast.
- Direct access for time-sensitive questions
- A second opinion on high-stakes decisions
- Live coaching through difficult conversations
- Policy and risk gut-checks
Advisory support is built into every engagement. This is for organizations that want access without a project attached.
On investment: Scoping and pricing follow a discovery call, once the size of the problem and the definition of success are clear. You’ll get a written proposal with defined scope and deliverables before anything begins — no open-ended hourly billing.
Who you’ll be working with
Michelle Williams
Founder, Principal Coach & Consultant
My path to HR leadership didn’t begin in HR — it began in mission. I started on the program side of the nonprofit sector, then found my way to recruiting as a job developer connecting young adults from underserved communities to living-wage work.
From there I moved into HR: first HR Business Partner at The Brookings Institution, Director of Talent Acquisition and Management at Polaris, then Vice President of Human Resources — and later Operations and Human Resources — at the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Across those roles I built what many organizations lack entirely: performance management programs, compliance infrastructure, compensation systems, HRIS implementations, DEI committees with real structure behind them. And throughout, the senior searches that placed the people trusted to carry each mission forward.
I founded Conscientious Coaching and Consulting in 2018 to bring that experience to more than one organization at a time. Today I work with nonprofits and mission-driven organizations that need senior HR and talent expertise: organizations scaling past their people infrastructure, leaders inheriting a function nobody built, and boards facing a hire they can’t afford to get wrong.
- Howard University — MBA, BBA
- Over 20 years in HR, including a decade leading the function
- Former Adjunct Professor, University of the District of Columbia
- Full-cycle recruiting and executive search experience
- Thirty years in and alongside the nonprofit sector
Next step
Let’s start with a conversation.
A short discovery call, no obligation. We’ll talk through the situation, get an honest read on whether it’s a fit, and scope from there.
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