Kandace Vallejo, Remedios Consulting
Kandace Vallejo of Remedios Consulting helps grant makers and nonprofit leaders deepen relationships, capacity, and alignment. Through capacity building, strategic planning, and revenue strategy, she works with funders and organization leaders to move money to movements.
Who are you, who do you serve, and what are you focused on right now?
Through Remedios Consulting, I help grant makers and nonprofit leaders deepen relationships, capacity, and alignment. Through capacity building, strategic planning, and revenue strategy, I work with funders and organization leaders to move money to movements.
Right now, I'm partnering with Border Workers United to craft a strategic plan, and working with the Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation to convene the grantees of their Texas Coastal Frontline Fund.
What led you into this work?
I've worked in social movement organizations, philanthropies, and movement formations in Texas and across the US for over 20 years. I've had the privilege of founding and leading organizations, and working as a grant maker.
I started consulting because I have seen firsthand what it looks like when funders and their grantees operate collaboratively with strategic clarity: experimentation increases, the work scales, and organizations thrive. My practice at Remedios reinforces the connective tissue between money and movements by helping folks collaborate across entities and missions.
What was one of the hardest parts of building your career or business?
The hardest part of my career was looking around at the organization I'd built and realizing that the job of an ED isn't all it was cracked up to be. I'd built a multi-racial youth organizing project centered on healing justice for youth harmed by parental incarceration and deportation. We had a team of 12, a budget of over $1M, and we were finally earning six-figure multi-year general operations grants.
It looked great from the outside, but I was super burnt out. I realized that I'd pigeonholed myself into a role that I was excellent at, but ultimately did not enjoy doing. I took a sabbatical, and eventually resigned, realizing that I had outgrown the role.
A real culture of care and well-being is built on clear strategy, and being willing to say no to a whole lot of things. Saying yes to something requires saying no to something else. We have to be resolute in what we WON'T do, to be effective at what we WILL do. This hard lesson is at the heart of my consulting practice.
What's a project you're proud of?
A legacy immigrant rights organization reached out for help with their fundraising. I told the ED, "I'm not your frontline fundraiser, and even if I did provide that service, you'd be underutilizing what I can offer you. Let me help you with your revenue strategy instead."
We worked together for an initial five months, using my Story / Strategy / Systems framework. They left with a customized Revenue Development Plan and toolkit that included a tuned-up Story and Strategy (key tools like a Theory of Change, concept notes, and a pitch deck) and a customized set of Systems built on what they already had, like a pipeline management document and a revenue tracker.
The organization has now more than doubled their fundraising. Following a year when most organizations in our sector made difficult cuts and scaled back, this organization entered 2026 with their entire budget already raised, and twice the amount of multi-year general operations grants as the year prior. They're now onboarding a dedicated grant writing team, increasing staff salaries, and hiring for key roles to support organizational growth.
What are you building right now?
I'm working on a really special project with the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, supporting five of their grantees in the Louisiana River Parishes (also known as "Cancer Alley"). Many of the organizational leaders there are direct descendants of formerly enslaved people, and they're on the frontlines of the climate crisis in so many ways. That work is rooted in cultural preservation, climate resilience, and mutual aid. It's an honor to have earned the trust to hold them in their strategic visioning process.
I'm also looking forward to the pilot launch of a dedicated communications capacity building fund for Texas-based climate organizations. It's the product of nearly two years of learning, landscaping, and ideating with funders and organizational leaders.
What belief about consulting or nonprofit work has changed for you?
Hot take, but money doesn't solve all your problems in nonprofits. If you don't have the right systems and internal infrastructure, if you're pouring all your resources into the external work, you may be cannibalizing your organization's long-term stability, your personal peace and well-being, or both.
So even if your funders gave you half a million, you and your team might still feel burnt out and overwhelmed in a year. It's a tough thing to hear, but the silver lining is that there are ways to shorten the learning curve and avoid some of the hard knocks.
What advice would you give someone earlier in their journey?
My first nonprofit job was at Workers Defense Project, under the leadership of Cristina Tzintzun. I learned from Cristina that no matter what I'm doing in the work, there are likely three other people who have done exactly that or something similar before. She taught me to do research, find models to build on, and to ask for advice. In short, don't reinvent the wheel! It's served me in every role since, even now as a consultant building my own practice.