The practice
Signals of fit, not marketing claims.
Two decades
at the intersection of employment law, senior HR, coaching, and facilitation.
Mission-driven
nonprofits, foundations, associations, and faith-led organizations of 50–500 people.
Board & executive level
trusted counsel for executive directors, boards, and senior People leaders.
Discreet by design
every inquiry confidential; every engagement scoped and held with care.
Is this for us?
These four patterns account for most of our engagements. If one of them reads familiar, Faith 1st is likely built for the moment you are in.
Leadership transition
A founder stepping back, a long-tenured ED leaving, a Head of People arriving. The board and executive team need a steady outside voice to sequence the legal, reputational, and human conversations without confusing them.
Supervisory exposure
Performance conversations don't happen, or happen badly. Conduct issues get worked around. The cost accumulates quietly in trust, retention, and mission outcomes long before it shows up in turnover data.
Conduct & culture
Trust is quietly draining while everyone stays professional. Culture consultants feel too vague; outside counsel feels too sharp. The organization needs the third path — contained, HR-aware, human.
People function under pressure
Handbook revisions overdue. HR practices built on institutional memory alone. A senior People leader needing a steady thinking partner, or an embedded outside voice on a defined engagement, until the internal footing is rebuilt.
The Faith 1st approach
Faith 1st is a consulting practice — not a training vendor, not a coach roster, not a keynote circuit. Every engagement follows the same three disciplines, sized to the moment your organization is in.
Before we scope anything, we take the time to hear what is really happening — the terrain beneath the presenting problem — so the work is built around your organization, not a template.
Two decades of employment-law fluency, senior HR practice, certified executive coaching, and sensitive facilitation — brought as one consulting judgment, not four disconnected specialties.
Every engagement is designed to leave your leaders, managers, and People function stronger than we found them — with the language, structure, and rehearsed conversations they can carry forward.
Services
Faith 1st is a Leadership, People & Culture Consulting firm. We help mission-driven and values-led organizations move through high-stakes people moments through senior consulting, development, coaching, and workplace investigations — with executive judgment in the room.
An outside consulting partner for executive directors, boards, and senior People leaders navigating leadership transitions, proactive HR strategy, handbook revisions, embedded interim support, or the moment where the internal team simply needs a steadier voice in the room.
When the stakes are real, the terrain is sensitive, and there is no obvious person inside the organization to bring it to.
Practical, HR-aware training that equips supervisors and mid-level managers with the judgment, language, and rehearsed conversations the role actually requires — performance direction, conduct correction, development pacing, and the ambient work of setting a floor.
When managers were promoted on competence but never trained for the conversations the role requires.
Confidential 1:1 coaching for executive directors, senior leaders, and rising leaders carrying complex people, culture, or transition responsibilities. Strengths-based; Gallup-trained CliftonStrengths integrated where useful.
When a leader needs an outside thinking partner who has seen this terrain before — not a curriculum.
Contained support for the moments where trust has quietly drained, conduct has been worked around, or leadership needs a clear read on what is actually happening beneath the professional surface. For select clients, Faith 1st Consulting also conducts workplace investigations and complex conduct reviews — with discretion, trauma-aware interviewing, and clear recommendations for boards and executive teams.
When the room is too delicate for HR alone and too human for outside counsel.
Katrina Bernard, JD | CPC
Founder & Principal
Founder authority
Faith 1st is anchored in two decades of practice at the intersection of employment law, senior HR judgment, certified executive coaching, and sensitive facilitation. Katrina Bernard, JD | CPC, is the founder and principal — brought in when leadership transitions, workplace conduct, management capability, or People-function pressure need senior outside judgment that the internal team can trust to hold with care.
Practice signals
Two decades of employment-law fluency behind every conversation.
Senior HR judgment — the kind that lives inside organizations, not outside them.
Certified executive coach and Gallup-trained CliftonStrengths practitioner.
Built for mission-driven and values-led organizations and the leaders inside them.
Every inquiry is confidential. Every engagement is held with care.
Steady in the rooms where culture, conduct, and trust are all at stake.
Brought in when
Leadership transitions the board needs to sequence carefully
Workplace conduct concerns that HR alone cannot hold
Management capability gaps costing the mission quietly
People-function pressure — handbook revisions, embedded interim leadership, HR strategy
Publications & Insights
Structured publications for organizational buyers making sense of people, culture, and conduct challenges.
Why promoted-on-competence managers cost mission-driven organizations more than turnover data suggests — and the readiness architecture that recovers it.
Process
Reaching out shouldn’t feel like a leap. Here is exactly what happens between the moment you submit an inquiry and the start of the work.
You share context through the inquiry form. Identifying information stays with the practice only.
We acknowledge the inquiry and propose a brief discovery conversation — or point you elsewhere if we’re not the right fit.
Thirty minutes. We listen, name what we’re hearing, and decide together whether to continue. No deck. No pitch.
If we’re a fit, we co-design the engagement — scope, sequencing, deliverables, and the rhythm of the work.
Work begins, held with discretion, within the organization’s rhythms. We leave behind capability, not dependency.
Every inquiry is handled by Katrina directly. If Faith 1st is not the right fit, we’ll often refer you to someone better suited.
Book a consultation
The website's job is to help the right buyer recognize a fit fast. If Faith 1st sounds close to what your organization needs, a short, deliberate inquiry is enough — Katrina reads every submission personally, and we respond within two business days.
