Our Mission
Stronger organizations.
Greater possibilities.
Our mission is to strengthen businesses and nonprofit organizations through strategic guidance and practical support, helping them build capacity, access resources, and advance their goals with dignity and creativity.
Sharon Higgins
Founder, President & CEO
Sharon Higgins brings more than 25 years of experience helping businesses and nonprofit organizations turn their goals into practical strategies, stronger operations, and new opportunities. Her work spans business development, public procurement, access to capital, and community economic development.
Her experience includes leadership of the Brooklyn and South Bronx Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Business Centers. Across her economic development career, she helped businesses pursue contracting, bonding, and financing opportunities, working with business owners, public agencies, financial institutions, and community partners to connect preparation with opportunity.
At OLIM, Sharon combines strategic guidance with hands-on implementation. She helps clients assess their position, identify barriers, set priorities, and carry out a clear plan, whether they are preparing for growth, pursuing contracts, strengthening a nonprofit, or developing a community program.
With an academic background in accounting, public administration, and higher education administration, Sharon brings financial discipline, organizational insight, and an understanding of how institutions work. Her approach rests on a straightforward conviction: effective consulting should respect people’s dignity, welcome independent thought, and leave organizations better equipped to move forward.
The principles that guide our work
Human dignity
Respect each person’s agency, circumstances, and contribution.
Freedom of expression
Welcome questions, disagreement, and independent thought.
Creativity
Develop original, practical approaches grounded in real needs.
Our mission in practice
For businesses
Strategic business development and support for access to capital, contracts, and new markets.
Explore Business ServicesFor nonprofits
Organizational and program development that connects community priorities with resources and action.
Explore Nonprofit ServicesWe provide candid advice, define clear responsibilities, and help clients turn plans into action.
Our commitments to clients
These commitments guide our services, our content, and our client relationships. We review them as the company grows.
Your agency comes first
We respect each client’s circumstances and information. We describe readiness gaps as capabilities to develop, and in community work we make room for the people a program serves to shape its priorities.
Candid advice, your decision
We welcome questions and disagreement. You own your decisions. Respecting an idea does not require us to endorse it, and we accept engagements on consistent standards of purpose, competence, and integrity.
Independent judgment
We give honest recommendations, even when they reduce the immediate scope of paid work.
Clear accountability
We define responsibilities and deliverables, explain our assumptions, acknowledge limitations, and correct material errors.
Integrity over revenue
Revenue never justifies humiliation, exploitation, deception, or misuse of another person’s work.
Honest about outcomes
We improve readiness and support your pursuits. Funding approvals, contract awards, and customer decisions remain with the lenders, buyers, and customers who make them.
Accountable from the first meeting
Each engagement tracks what was agreed, so you can see progress in concrete terms.
Deliverables
Each agreed deliverable is tracked against the engagement scope.
Readiness
Improvements in readiness for capital, contracts, markets, or programs.
Milestones
Implementation milestones reviewed with you at regular intervals.
Let’s put purpose into practice.
Start with a conversation about your organization’s next step.
Schedule a Consultation