About First Things First Consulting.

Leadership Gets Complicated. Clarity Changes Things.

Why First Things First Exists

First Things First Consulting began with a simple observation:

Good leaders can become so busy doing important work that they lose the space to determine what matters most.

Organizations rarely drift because their leaders stop caring.

More often, committed people respond to opportunities, solve problems, launch initiatives, meet needs, and carry responsibilities.

Over time, priorities multiply.

Structures become complicated.

Expectations increase.

The urgent begins competing with the important.

And leaders who care deeply about the mission can find themselves working harder without being completely certain that all that effort is moving the organization where it needs to go.

First Things First Consulting exists to help leaders step back, regain clarity, align their people, and build around what matters most.

Meet Gerald Dzawo

A Practitioner Before a Consultant

Gerald Dzawo didn't develop the First Things First™ Framework from the outside looking in.

It grew from more than two decades of leading people, teams, ministries, and organizations through the realities of leadership.

Gerald's leadership journey began in Zimbabwe, where he served in youth ministry and founded an organization dedicated to training and equipping youth workers.

After moving to the United States, his leadership experience continued through roles in youth and family ministry, associate leadership, and senior pastoral leadership.

Across those different environments, one lesson kept resurfacing:

The mission may remain constant while the organization around it becomes increasingly complex.

Gerald has experienced the realities leaders face when vision meets everyday organizational life.

Competing priorities.

Limited resources.

Changing communities.

Volunteer leadership.

Organizational growth.

Leadership transitions.

Programs that once worked but may no longer fit the current season.

The challenge of developing new leaders while still carrying today's responsibilities.

And the constant tension between responding to what is urgent and protecting what is important.

Those experiences eventually became the foundation for First Things First Consulting.

From Experience to Framework

There Had to Be a Better Way to Think About Leadership

Over time, Gerald began recognizing recurring patterns.

Organizations often don't need more ideas.

They need alignment.

Leaders don't always need another initiative.

They need clarity.

Teams don't necessarily need to work harder.

They need focus.

Organizations don't need systems simply for the sake of having systems.

They need structures that actually support the mission.

And sustainable leadership requires more than accomplishing today's work.

It requires developing the people who can carry the mission tomorrow.

Those observations eventually became five leadership disciplines:

ALIGN

CLARIFY

FOCUS

BUILD

MULTIPLY

Together, they form the First Things First™ Framework—a practical approach for helping leaders move from organizational complexity toward greater clarity, alignment, focus, and sustainable impact.

EXPLORE THE FRAMEWORK

Why First Things First?

Because Everything Can't Be First.

Leadership creates an almost endless supply of worthwhile opportunities.

There will always be another need.

Another program.

Another meeting.

Another possibility.

Another problem to solve.

Another request for someone's attention.

But leadership is ultimately about choices.

What deserves our attention?

What advances the mission?

What can wait?

What should stop?

What needs to change?

What do we need to build?

Who do we need to develop?

First Things First Consulting helps leadership teams create enough distance from everyday organizational pressure to ask those questions well.

We bring structure to the conversation.

We ask questions that can be difficult to ask from inside the organization.

We identify patterns.

We help leaders clarify choices.

And then we help turn clarity into action.

Our Philosophy

Leadership Is Stewardship.

At the heart of First Things First Consulting is a deeply held conviction:

Leadership is stewardship.

Leaders are entrusted with things that matter.

People.

Time.

Resources.

Influence.

Opportunities.

Organizations.

And missions worth protecting.

Our Christian faith shapes that understanding.

It calls us to approach leadership with integrity, humility, service, responsibility, and respect for the people affected by the decisions leaders make.

Those values aren't a marketing strategy.

They are part of who we are.

For churches and Christian ministries, our work can engage explicitly with Scripture, calling, ministry effectiveness, and Kingdom impact.

When serving nonprofits, associations, and other mission-driven organizations, those same convictions shape how we serve, while respecting the identity, culture, mission, and convictions of the organization we're serving.

We don't require organizations to share our faith in order to work with us.

We do require ourselves to serve every organization with integrity, respect, excellence, and genuine care for its mission and people.

Our values shape us.
Your mission guides the engagement.

How We Approach Consulting

Come Alongside, Not Come Down From Above.

We don't believe the consultant's job is to enter an organization and announce everything that's wrong with it.

The people inside the organization know things an outsider cannot know.

They understand the history.

The relationships.

The culture.

The victories.

The disappointments.

The personalities.

The opportunities.

And the mission.

Our role is different.

We bring an outside perspective that helps leaders see their organization more clearly.

We listen carefully.

We ask questions.

We notice patterns.

We challenge assumptions when necessary.

We create space for conversations that may otherwise be postponed.

And we help leaders translate insight into practical next steps.

Our objective isn't to make organizations dependent on First Things First Consulting.

It's to help leaders become better equipped to lead their organizations after we're gone.

What You Can Expect

When you work with First Things First Consulting, you can expect:

Thoughtful Listening
We seek to understand before recommending.

Practical Thinking
Ideas should eventually become decisions, priorities, ownership, and action.

Honest Perspective
Sometimes organizations need someone from outside the room who can respectfully say what others may already be sensing.

Customized Engagement
Your organization isn't a template. We adapt our process to the mission, people, context, and challenge.

Respect for People
Organizational problems are rarely solved by forgetting that human beings are involved.

Mission Focus
Programs, structures, strategies, and systems exist to support the mission—not become the mission.

Sustainable Leadership
Success isn't simply getting through the next project. We want leaders and organizations to become healthier and stronger for the work ahead.

Experience That Translates

Gerald's experience has been shaped significantly within churches and Christian organizations.

We don't minimize that.

We value it.

Ministry leadership provides a demanding environment for learning about organizational life.

It requires leaders to navigate paid staff and volunteers, boards and committees, competing expectations, limited resources, deeply held convictions, organizational history, community relationships, change, conflict, succession, and mission—all while leading people who genuinely care about the organization.

Those leadership lessons travel well.

Today, First Things First Consulting brings them alongside:

Churches & Ministries

Nonprofits & Associations

Mission-Driven Organizations

Different environments.

Different terminology.

Different stakeholders.

But often remarkably similar leadership questions.

Are we clear?

Are we aligned?

Are we focused?

Are we building what the mission actually requires?

Are we developing the people who will carry it forward?

Credentials and Experience

Gerald Dzawo brings more than two decades of leadership experience across ministry, organizational leadership, training, facilitation, and leadership development.

His background includes:

More than 20 years of ministry and organizational leadership
Senior pastoral leadership
Associate and youth/family ministry leadership
Founder of a youth-worker training organization in Zimbabwe
Leadership training and development
Strategic and ministry alignment facilitation
Board and leadership-team development
Retreat and workshop facilitation
Organizational and ministry assessment
Development of the First Things First™ Framework
B.S. in Organizational Management with an emphasis in Christian Leadership from Colorado Christian University

Gerald's work combines the perspective of a practitioner who has carried leadership responsibility with the structured thinking of a consultant who can step outside the organization and help leaders see what may be difficult to see from within.

The value of experience isn't simply having encountered many leadership situations.

It's learning how to listen carefully, recognize patterns, ask better questions, and help leaders see possibilities they may have difficulty seeing from inside the organization.

That's the perspective First Things First brings to the table.

Why The Name?

First Things First.

The name isn't complicated.

That's intentional.

Leaders constantly face the tension between what is urgent and what is important.

The challenge isn't simply doing more.

It's determining what deserves to come first.

That's the question behind our work.

Before adding another program—

What matters most?

Before reorganizing the staff—

What matters most?

Before writing another strategic plan—

What matters most?

Before pursuing another opportunity—

What matters most?

Before building something new—

What matters most?

Because everything can't be first.

And when leaders become clear about what matters most, they can begin building around it.

Let's Start With a Conversation.

Every church, nonprofit, association, and mission-driven organization is somewhere on the journey.

Maybe you're navigating a season of change and trying to discern what comes next.

Maybe your leaders are committed but sense that vision, priorities, or programs have become misaligned.

Maybe it's time to step back and evaluate what's working, what isn't, and what still belongs in the next season.

Perhaps you're experiencing growth, and the structures, systems, and leadership practices that brought you this far aren't enough to take you where you're going.

Or maybe things are going well—and you simply want to be intentional about preparing your organization and developing your leaders for what's next.

Whatever brings you here, you don't need to have the problem completely diagnosed or the solution already figured out.

We'll listen to what's happening, ask some questions, and help determine whether First Things First Consulting is the right partner for what comes next.

And if we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.

Our goal is to help you build what matters most.

Start by telling us where you are. We'll take it from there.

START A CONVERSATION

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