Creating Positive Change in Communities

“Working with CGR gave our organization exactly what it needed to begin evaluating our programs. Dr. Donna Harris is a trusted professional who made this an enjoyable and beneficial process.”

“CGR is amazing to work with. Their expertise, responsiveness, and ability to guide is unparalleled. We absolutely look forward to working together with CGR again on future projects.”

"CGR has been an invaluable resource to us for many of our projects. They are truly subject matter experts that provided us the data, tools and resources we need to make informed decisions. I highly recommend them and will certainly use them again for future needs."

"It was a great pleasure to work with the smart and experienced team at CGR in a complex and challenging project. They are absolutely terrific."

"CGR’s versatility made them our go-to partner to help design a framework for an innovative new program. They took the time to understand our objectives, thoroughly researched peer programs in the marketplace, and made targeted recommendations on how to structure our approach."

"The CGR team, led by Dr. Harris, has been an excellent partner by providing timely data collection and analysis. They have forged relationships with partners and provides them guidance and data collection practices. Dr. Harris serves as a key project advisor and offers sound guidance to Full Service Community School staff and partners as we work to ensure that our efforts improve the educational success of program students and their families. I highly recommend CGR in this capacity."

"CGR provided a variety of critical supports to the RASE commission, including data collection and analysis, a review of local ordinances, information on the function and operations of local government, research on specific issues, and documentation of the entire process and outcomes. CGR was responsible to pull together a vast amount of information and perspectives into a coherent and compelling final report. They did a superb job and produced a brilliant document that I believe will serve our community for years to come in driving the systemic changes we desperately need in Rochester in order to provide true equality, freedom and equity to all our residents."

"The Dyson Foundation has worked with CGR for more than 10 years on our Community Indicator project in addition to a variety of critical research projects. They are professional, highly experienced, and valued partners in our philanthropic work."

“CGR is an extremely professional organization and is very responsive to its clients.”

"It was a lengthy process dealing with 6 fire districts and volunteer rescue squad. I don't think CGR could have done a better job."

"Partnering with CGR is a true collaborative experience that prioritizes people and community, exemplifies rigor in all aspects of the work and results in actionable data and recommendations that support informed decision-making and change."

"The County’s jail population has now settled into the 50s (down from the 90 or so we were housing during your study). The County is actually boarding-in now. 

In hearing about these remarkable stats, it sure seems that not only were your programmatic recommendations effective, but you were spot-on in predicting that the jail population could actually shrink.

As so much of the good news about the County’s jail population relates to recommendations in your report, you and your team should feel very good about what you helped to accomplish.  I know the process wasn’t always pleasant or easy, but it is clear in hindsight that the effort was worth it.  Our community is reaping the benefits of your persistence on many levels. Kudos for providing such clear and effective advice to the County."

"CGR researchers get the job done: they collect the data, do the analysis, and write a professional report. In the process they ask intelligent questions to help define the issue. They are reliable partners."

"Comprehensive, thought provoking research, analysis and option profile that left no stone unturned."

"What I appreciated most from working with the CGR team was their candor and commitment in getting the work completed—great staff!"

The Dyson Foundation has enjoyed a long and positive working relationship and partnership with CGR, ranging from the Mid-Hudson Valley Community Profiles (community indicators) site, to various research projects for both the Foundation and our grantees.

I was so impressed with the content and focus of your presentation. And your ability to grab and keep an audience's attention is unbelievable.

We were very glad that we hired CGR. The professional services were absolutely competent to manage our study. Our board worked with confidence knowing that the data provided would serve the test of time.

I was very impressed with the demonstration of cost/benefit analysis software specifically designed for industrial development agencies. It's easy to use, affordable and offers economic development professionals an effective tool to measure potential projects.

On time, efficient and open to ideas and suggestions to tailor the needs of the customer.

I had the pleasure of working with CGR on several projects. The team at CGR was extremely knowledgeable and provided valuable insight to serve my needs. I would highly recommend their services to anyone.

"CGR conducted a fiscal and operational analysis that exceeded all previous studies and set a new standard for future studies."

"On time, on budget, very professional. It's what every client hopes for. That's CGR."

CGR is extremely thorough, thoughtful and professional. They add value to our work. We consider them important partners.

The work done by CGR and their lead consultant Joe Stefko was outstanding. We needed someone who would understand the two Princetons and help guide the Commission through a study process that we knew would be challenged in this community known for its challenging citizens and world famous academic environment. CGR was perfect for the task.

CGR is the most respected independent government research firm in NYS. Their reputation is well earned.

CGR delivers up-to-date data that's easy to use and readily accessible. Having a foundation of objective data and analysis that's based on a common data set allows us to work together to make our communities even better. Using our Community Profile we can review our accomplishments and challenges from the previous year, then determine the focus of our efforts for the coming year.

Having worked with CGR on many projects over the years – they continue to exceed my expectations with the quality of their work & the value that I receive as a customer.

CGR made an independent review of our county's Health programs & allowed the facts to speak for themself as well as [to] the members of the Board of Supervisors.

CGR's work was performed very professionally and in a very timely manner under an accelerated performance schedule. CGR's staff were consistently very responsive and handled all work components very skillfully.

Put Don Pryor into a Xerox machine. He's smart, sensitive, able to understand complex organizations & issues—a person to work with. Don's recommendations have utility & provide the department with a roadmap to the future.

CGR's staff, specifically Donna and Alice were caring professionals who got what we needed and guided us in that direction.

The CGR team was great to work with. They were able to gather information from multiple municipalities in a way we would never have been able to do on our own. The Final Report we received will be instrumental in moving our project forward. We appreciate the effort that was put into our feasibility study and highly recommend their work for other similar projects.

CGR was timely in doing a large project we wanted in a very short time frame. They worked with us cooperatively so the work was a combined effort, thus increasing our ability to use the work effectively with our members. The work CGR did was ground breaking in that an economic footprint model had not been previously used in education and will benefit school districts by helping justify support from taxpayers for education funding.

Joe Stefko and his team at CGR prepared a Shared Services Study at a time when cities and towns in Connecticut are facing cutbacks in State aid. The work they performed was timely and provides our municipalities with a menu going forward as to how to deal with these funding reductions.

CGR’s feasibility study on mobile summer meals in the City of Rochester was presented to the Summer Meals Partnership of Rochester in late April, 2016 and the Partnership was so enthused by the findings that they immediately began planning a pilot mobile meals program for summer 2016.  We moved from the study’s release on April 28th to implementation of the pilot on June 26th.  The quick turnaround time is a testament to CGR’s data-rich and catalyzing study, as well as to the commitment, flexibility, and innovative thinking of our community partners.

CGR helped our team increase our capacity to empower low-income families in Philadelphia. We now have the tools to capture client feedback and measure outcomes, which is increasingly essential to today’s foundations & funders.