Funded, But Not Ready

Getting funded feels like success — until the work begins.

In healthcare especially, funding often becomes mistaken for readiness. New grants, budgets, and pilots launch before the leadership team has agreed on what ready actually means. Capital accelerates motion, not clarity — and once the dollars land, the pressure to show progress often replaces the discipline to align around purpose, priorities, and decision authority associated with change.

Leaders move from “What should we do?” to “How fast can we prove it works?” — skipping the hard conversations that determine whether the organization is truly positioned to succeed.

According to Menlo Ventures’ 2025 State of AI in Healthcare report, healthcare organizations are adopting AI tools more than twice as fast as other industries — yet most are still struggling to turn that investment into measurable impact. The technology is accelerating faster than the alignment.

That’s where we come in.

Readiness isn’t a project plan — it’s a leadership discipline. It shows up in how executives make decisions, resolve friction, and translate strategy into action. Without that alignment around purpose, priorities, and decision authority, even the best-funded initiatives stay in perpetual pilot mode — technically sound but culturally stalled.

At First Stage Advisors, we help leadership teams get ready before they execute. Through our Executive Alignment Process, we turn funding into readiness — clarifying purpose, priorities, and accountability for change before the first dollar is spent.

Because no amount of capital replaces a team that moves in sync.