Company Profile

Empowering Leaders Through Organizational Learning

Carter Research is a professional services firm that provides strategic advisory, best practice research, new business development, and operational support solutions across industries with a deep expertise in K-12 education and organizational change management. Founded in 2000, Carter Research is structured as a partnership with member partners, consultants, analysts, and other support professionals distributed around the world. The firm helps business, civic, and organizational leaders transform their organizations through insight.

Carter Research clients include high-potential growth companies, private equity investors, global philanthropies, family foundations, nonprofit groups, universities, and school management organizations of every kind. In today’s complex landscape, vision, creativity, and the insight to innovate have all become necessary to enjoy sustained success. We are passionately committed to the Guiding Principles upon which our firm was founded.

At Carter Research we believe in the power of insight, and we believe that great goods come through healthy choice and competition. We aim to create surplus value for our clients and to advance the greater good of the whole human family both through our work and our particular approach to it.


Our Vision

Our vision is to transform organizations through insight.

Our Mission
Our mission is to unleash the pure potential of the human person and help all people obtain the skills, knowledge, and formation they need to thrive in life and positively contribute their unique gifts to society.

Company History

Carter Research has a long history of transforming organizations through insight and empowering leaders through organizational learning.

Beginning with the No Excuses research in 1998, which set a new national standard for excellence in the teaching of children in poverty (and launched dozens of school networks and hundreds of high-performing, high-poverty schools modeled on their best practices), Carter Research has established a 20-year track record of anticipating the most potent trends in school management and working with others to scale them successfully.  

Carter Research has helped the highest performing charter networks like KIPP, SEED, National Heritage Academies, and Charter Schools USA as well as the leading private school management organizations like CristoRey, HOPE, and Faith in the Future expand their operations and improve overall school quality. 

In 2010, after a decade of successfully demonstrating the qualitative and quantitative measures that lead to high performance in the education of the young, the research behind On Purpose shined a national spotlight on how great school cultures harness student character to drive achievement. 

By 2012 Carter Research encouraged the rise of innovative Catholic school management organizations in the U.S. which by 2016 led to the proliferation of new governance models both in the U.S. and in Europe needed to rebuild these and other faith-based schools for the future. 

Now Carter Research applies its proprietary research and suite of programs and services to help leaders across all industries transform their organizations through insight, establish performance cultures, and drive their enterprises to better outcomes.

Company Timeline

A brief overview of Carter Research assets and accomplishments to date that helped
industry leaders to transform their organizations through insight.
2021
Launches Proprietary Organizational Change Management Programs

Worked with industry-leading firms in software, analytics, and social science to drive new organizational results using Carter Research programs.

2020
Institute for the Transformation of Catholic Education at the Catholic University of America

Founded interdisciplinary research institute committed to the authentic renewal of liberal arts education in the Catholic tradition.

2018
Launch of School Management Services & Programs

Leadership and operational framework for continuous improvement based upon our proprietary methodology, best-practice research, and implementation support tools.

2016
International Conference on "On Purpose"

Italian symposium held by the Istituto Universitario Sophia di Loppiano upon the Italian publication of On Purpose.

2012
Faith in the Future Foundation

Designed and developed management agreement to operate largest Catholic school network in the US.

2011
On Purpose

Best selling book On Purpose: How Great School Cultures Form Strong Character is released.

2010
CfBT Education Trust

Supports launch of international charter high-school from the UK in the US.

2009
Mandate for Change

Published a bold agenda for the Obama Administration to help shape their education reform policy.

2005
National Heritage Academies

Designed and launched NHA’s leadership academy and oversaw the school turnaround efforts of the lowest performing schools in its system.

2000
No Excuses Campaign

Best selling book on No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools sparks national charter school movement.

1999
No Excuses

Policy brief No Excuses: Seven Principals of Low-Income Schools Who Set the Standard for High Achievement is released to national acclaim.