about branchbell
We know this world from the inside.
Branchbell was founded by Chloé Cavelier, who spent more than a decade inside mission-driven organizations before helping others build them. This is the experience and the thinking behind the work.
why branchbell exists
Talented people, worn down by the operational side.
Across years of work inside mission-driven organizations and small businesses, we kept seeing the same pattern: talented people, deeply good at what they do, quietly worn down by everything required to keep the work going. Marketing felt confusing. Systems were patched together. The vision had gone blurry.
What was missing was rarely commitment or vision. It was clarity, structure, and capacity — and a partner who could step into the details and help build something that actually fit. Branchbell exists to be that partner.
who's behind branchbell
Led by Chloé Cavelier.
I’ve worked inside mission-driven organizations since 2011, starting in nonprofit administration and growing into roles across operations, marketing, communications, and program development, often all at once. From early on, I worked closely with executive leadership, and even when I wasn’t the Executive Director myself, I was often the person leaders turned to when things felt unclear, overwhelming, or stuck.
I’ve sat in the room during growth, strain, and crisis (including funding challenges, leadership transitions, COVID-era decision-making, and public-facing moments where the stakes were high and the margin for error was small). That experience is the foundation of how I work today.
I’ve consulted with more than fifty nonprofits and small businesses, including helping shape early-stage ventures from idea to workable plan. I’m especially good at stepping into messy or early-stage situations, making sense of them quickly, and helping people see their work more clearly than they could on their own.
a different background
A background that shapes how we work.
I also bring a clinical background as a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and it informs this work more than you might expect. Years of working with people and systems under stress sharpened my ability to read patterns quickly, understand burnout and resistance, facilitate hard conversations, and help organizations move from stuck to steady.
It’s why Branchbell treats organizations as what they actually are: groups of people.
To be clear: Branchbell is a consulting and implementation studio. It is not therapy, counseling, or a mental health service, and our engagements are not clinical work in any form. The therapy practice is entirely separate and unrelated. The clinical background is simply part of what makes the consulting sharper.
how we work
Care is the throughline.
The throughline in everything is care for the mission, for the people doing the work, and for whether what we build can actually be maintained once we're gone.
In practice, that means:
• we approach complexity with curiosity, not a template
• we simplify without flattening what's genuinely hard
• we care about implementation, not just ideas
• we bring expertise without ego, hype, or grand claims
• we'd rather build one durable thing with you than hand over recommendations you don't have time to use
the studio model
A studio, by design.
You’ll notice we say “we.” Branchbell is intentionally lean: most work is led directly by Chloé, with trusted collaborators brought in when a project calls for skills or capacity beyond one person. It means you get senior attention on your work and the right people when you need them, without the overhead of a large firm.
Based in South Pasadena and working across greater Los Angeles and remotely with teams across the country.