Image Description: Illustration of a cream-colored silhouette of a person’s head and shoulders against a textured teal background. A tangled, looping dark line fills the head like a brain, and three strands reach out to dark puzzle pieces floating around it. Soft pink and white blurs drift in the background. By Eva Corbisier via Unsplash.
“Leadership for this era is not a role or a set of traits; it is a zone of inter-relational process. Step in, step out.” – Nora Bateson, Small Arcs of Larger Circles
The concept of leadership has been undergoing a rapid evolution. Especially in this “network age,” there appears to be both a growing appreciation that leadership has always been about more than the singular and highly visible “heroic individual,” and that, going forward, leadership must be upheld as much more of a shared and multidimensional practice.
In much of the collaborative consulting work that we do through the Interaction Institute for Social Change, leadership (or what we at IISC often call Facilitative Leadership™) is about “holding the whole.” That is, there is a need for groups, teams, organizations, and communities to think more expansively about a given system (community, economy, food system, organization, school, or school district) and pay attention to what is required to support resiliency and/or change for more equitable and sustained benefit. In these situations, the traditional top-down images of leadership fall short.
In the world of education, for example, we have seen hopes often pinned on seemingly superhuman teachers and principals who are brought in to “rescue failing kids and schools.” The assumption underlying these moves is that these extraordinary individuals will, by their own will, beat the odds and dramatically reverse some kind of “downward trend.” This story may be the making of a box office smash, but in reality it is met with mixed results at best. This is not to say that individuals cannot provide crucial sparks at important moments in organizations and communities. But holding out for heroic singular leadership ignores the complex reality of what got us to where we are, and it denies the more connected response that is required.
“Leadership is helping to make the network smarter.” –Harold Jarche from his blog
Network leadership at its best is dynamic, diverse, and multi-dimensional. Many of our partners in the work of social change understand this implicitly, and we have found it can be helpful to be more explicit about this by naming some of the roles that leadership can embody in a collaborative/networked world.
One overarching and all-encompassing role, with a bow of recognition to June Holley for coining the term, is “network guardianship.” Network guardianship is first and foremost about promoting and modeling fundamental network values such as transparency, openness, respect, generosity, and mutualism, all of which contribute to the creation of conditions that can nurture strong connections, robust flows, so-called “net effects,” and shared value. Many, if not all, of the important roles in networks contribute to establishing a collaborative and trusting culture. This culture is important to create and protect, especially at the outset of an initiative (in a state-wide food justice initiative that we helped to start, we referred to the early conveners of the network as “network gardeners”), though it is also important to keep networks from becoming too protected such that they become exclusionary.
“In a…network community…everyone is involved in creating and working toward that same common purpose and vision… everyone is equal, and all are able to act.” –Mila N. Baker, Peer-to-Peer Leadership
More specifically, there are a number of core roles or functions that we can put under the heading of “network leadership” that collectively feed the soil and nurture collaborative cultures for connections and flows to flourish.
Convening
A convener is a person or group who provides the social capital and connections to pull people together and some of the resources (money, space, technology) to build and support a network. Conveners in our practice are often foundations, municipal governments, academic institutions, and community-based organizations. A well-connected and trusted individual can also be a convener. This role includes championing the cause, raising awareness, and making the initial and ongoing invitation to come together.
Design (of Process and Structure)
The “design team,” in IISC’s practice, is comprised of a diverse group of people representing different parts of the system upon which an initiative is focused. This team maps out a pathway of activities that help to move a wider group of actors from disparateness to cohesion and, in many cases, from vision to action. Designers take on and enjoy creating experiences that enliven and bring out the best in a diverse group of people, including the creation of space for difficult conversations and building trust. Designers also think carefully about structures and supports that will facilitate equitable access and value through and in a network or networked activity, whether in-person or online.
Facilitation
A facilitator is a person or team of people who steward the overall process of network development and activation. Facilitators hold the space for productive conversations, listen to the wishes and wisdom of those who are convened, help to build alignment and agreement (if needed/desired), support self-organized activity, and balance structured discussion with openness to emergent possibilities. Ideally, facilitators are also able to capably address power dynamics and create spaces for diverse and equitable participation and belonging.
Weaving
According to June Holley: “A network weaver is someone aware of the networks around them and explicitly works to make them healthier. They do this by helping people identify their interests and challenges, connecting people strategically where there’s potential for mutual benefit, and catalyzing self-organizing groups.” In one particular regional network we support, there is a group of funded individuals called “Ambassadors” who are charged with reaching out to under-represented and often marginalized groups. Weaving supports the creation of internal group coherence (bonding) and “small world reach” (bridging to adjacent groups and networks) with a mind toward creating value for individual participants and the broader collective.
Communications and Curation
Communications in social change networks can be a complex role, not necessarily the same as organizational communications. It is about helping to create and fill a variety of channels (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many) so that people can stay connected, share freely, and learn in timely ways. In many cases, it is also helpful to have a role or roles committed to content curation—soliciting, aggregating, distilling, highlighting, and organizing an abundance of information and other resources to help people stay engaged and seeking and sharing information.
Provocation
Being a provocateur can be an informal or formal role and is often filled by a person or people who can ask the otherwise unasked questions. The provocateur challenges a group or initiative when it is reaching agreement too easily or getting too comfortable and safe with its work and thinking. Often provocateurs are found in those at the periphery of networks or who span boundaries of various kinds.
Coordination
Network coordination often comes down in large part to creating and maintaining a support infrastructure, scheduling common meeting times, and ensuring that people have access to relevant resources. Especially in complex action-oriented networks this is a crucial function, without which things can quickly unravel!
Implementation/Prototyping
“Implementation” can look different from network to network. This might be about putting into action a shared and structured “strategic plan” of some kind through formalized work groups. But it can also look like individuals experimenting with and honing nascent and promising ideas as they emerge through learning and conversation. Sometimes experimentation occurs at the “edges” of larger formalized projects through spontaneous new partnerships (such as ad hoc task teams and communities of practice) forming and trying out new things. This is self-organization, where the magic in networks often happens.
Governance
This is the function that many people want to turn to first in multi-organizational collaborative networks. How will we make decisions? How will we develop policy or make strategic choices? How will we get things done? There are valid questions, and if the default is a traditional governing board structure, or a steering committee, it can limit network potential. Sometimes that is what is called for, and as my mentor and fellow network enthusiast Jessica Lipnack has said, “You only needenoughstructure to facilitate conversation and make crucial decisions.” Less is often more. A network principle that I find helpful to share is subsidiarity in governance – decisions are best made by those closest to the ground or point of implementation. Governance should help the network be leaders-full!
Consider this a starter list of important roles and functions. They are not necessarily all present, or present at the same time or in the same way, in all networks. And regardless of which ones are activated, they are all made that much more useful through the intention of making the network smarter.
What does leadership look and feel like in your networks and networked activities?
Which roles and functions are present? Which ones are missing?
What could be done to grow and spread network leadership?
Image Description: A collage featuring photos of some of my ancestors, layered in front of Popocatépetl with an orange sun rising behind its peak and a sunset sky. Papel picado hangs above, and candles, marigolds, pan de muerto, and a painted sugar skull fill the ofrenda below. By Sandra Herrera.
Growing up, I never celebrated Día de Muertos. My father is from Atencingo, a town in southwestern Puebla, Mexico, and celebrated it his whole life before coming to the U.S. in his late 20s. But he didn’t pass it down to my three sisters and me. Like a lot of things in immigrant families, it stayed behind.
It wasn’t until I got older that I wanted to connect more deeply with my roots. As a young adult, I carried a lot of anxiety, including a deep fear of death. That can happen when you come from a long line of trauma on both sides. Somewhere in there, I felt called to do some spiritual, ancestral work.
Finding the names
It started on my Puerto Rican side, where U.S. census records made genealogy a little easier. I looked up my grandfather, who’s someone I still feel all around me, even though he passed when I was 16. I was able to find his family and put names to people I’d never heard of. But as my colleague Simone John writes in Southern Census, records can give you names, but not the stories behind them. Records from Mexico are harder to access, but I found some of our people and my grandmother’s Indigenous last name, which led to a whole path of reconnecting.
So much has been lost to colonization and assimilation. Reconnecting is ongoing – I’m still learning (shoutout to C.C. Anahuac) and asking questions, and I’m careful not to claim what isn’t mine. I couldn’t get everything back. But I could start with one practice with Indigenous roots in Mexico: celebrating the dead.
I wasn’t the first to find my way back this way. In 1972, Chicana/o artists at Self-Help Graphics in East Los Angeles revived Día de Muertos as an act of cultural reclamation. Most of them hadn’t grown up with it either. They learned it as adults, together.
My first ofrenda
I built my first ofrenda in 2020 at my parents’ house, our family gathering place, because I wanted my dad to see us taking part. I included the four elements: tequila for water (why not?), crystals for earth, papel picado for wind, and candles for fire. I added marigolds and pan de muerto, and lit ethically sourced copal in a burner made of volcanic rock from Popocatépetl, the volcano you can see from my father’s hometown. Even though I’d never done this before, it felt like something my soul remembered.
Then the photos came out. Once I brought out some of my grandfather, my mom started pulling out more. She’s always been the keeper of the family photos, and she had a lot from my dad’s side too. The ofrenda filled up fast. We’d also lost people to COVID that year, and they joined it too. It could have been a really sad day, but it turned out to be a joyful one. It started my healing around death. I found comfort in believing these are the people who’ll greet me on the other side.
I’ve built an ofrenda every year since, and it’s become a family tradition. Along the way, I learned a lot about the work I do: storytelling.
What the ofrenda taught me about storytelling
Scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto once wrote that “altares often serve as a cumulative historical narrative for the life of a family.” That’s exactly what ours became. Year after year, it holds our family’s story, and building it has taught me a lot about storytelling.
Details make people real. On Día de Muertos, it’s tradition to set out the foods your loved ones enjoyed in life. When I asked my mom what to make for my grandfather, she told me he loved rice and steak with ketchup. That was his thing. It’s the kind of detail you’d think doesn’t matter, but it adds so much texture to how I remember him.
The same goes for comms. We often reach for big descriptions like “a loving father” or “a dedicated leader,” but those could describe anyone. The small, specific stuff is what sticks: the coffee mug someone brings to every meeting, or the phrase a facilitator always opens with. Those details are what make a reader feel like they know someone. You usually can’t find them in a report or a bio, so you have to talk to people and listen for the details that make a person who they are.
Curiosity opens the story. When I held up an old photo and asked, “Who’s that?” a whole new story came out. Curiosity has a way of leading you to stories you weren’t looking for. And the best stories usually start with a good question. A few to try:
What’s a moment from this that you keep coming back to?
What surprised you?
What did it look, sound, or feel like?
Who else was part of this?
What changed, for you or for someone else?
What do you want people to understand after hearing this?
And…a list of go-to questions only gets you so far. I enjoy staying present and following the energy of the person telling the story. I notice when they lean in, talk faster, or light up. That’s usually where the real story is, even if it’s not the one I came for. So it’s important to leave room to wander.
Stories last when we retell them. Every year, many of the same memories come up around the ofrenda, and that’s how they stay alive. In comms, it’s easy to forget that we’re the only ones who see every story an organization tells, but someone reading your newsletter might be hearing a story for the very first time. So don’t be afraid to repeat yourself or find different ways (or platforms!) to tell the same story. A good story is worth retelling.
Storytelling is shared. Whenever my family looks at photos together, the stories start flowing. My mom usually starts, and my dad jumps in with details she missed. I knew my grandfather one way, but my older sisters will share stories that show me a side of him I never got to see. Each of us holds a piece, and the story gets fuller every time someone adds to it.
In comms, the strongest stories work the same way. When I’m writing about a project, I try to talk to more than one person: the people who led it, the people it served, and anyone who saw it from a different angle. Inviting others to add their pieces, through a quick form, voice note, a shared board, or a simple “what do you remember?”, means no one has to hold the whole story alone. My job is to help all those pieces come together.
Joy and grief belong in the same story. The ofrenda holds both at once, and real stories do too. But storytelling, especially social justice storytelling, often leads with the hardest part of people’s lives. We share and tell stories of injustice, and we have to, because people need to understand the harm. When that’s the only story we share and tell, though, people get reduced to their pain, and readers end up feeling hopeless or numb.
We need stories of repair too. My ofrenda is one. Colonization and assimilation took a lot from my family, and building it is one small way of taking something back. Stories of repair, whether that’s reparations, healing, or communities reclaiming land, culture, and resources, show people what justice could actually look like. That’s what helps them believe it’s possible.
It’s about balance. We can and should talk about trauma. We need to talk about joy too, because joy is how we get through it, especially with so many crises happening in the world right now. Joy also helps us imagine the future we want, and imagining is how we start to create it. So when I interview someone, I’ll ask what was hard, and I’ll also ask what brought them joy or kept them going.
The people who have my back
I look forward to building an ofrenda every year. It’s one of many links to my ancestors, the people who look out for me. Many of them carried so much in their lives. Now they’re at peace, and every year around this time, we get to celebrate them with joy. And I know they have my back.
So I’ll leave you with a question. If you built an altar for the people who shaped your life and your work, who would be on it? And what’s the small detail you’d want everyone to remember about them? Start there – that’s where every good story begins.
Image Description: Hand-drawn illustration of two people running along a beach toward the water, arms spread wide, with footprints trailing behind them. The scene is sketched in loose purple lines on a soft pink background, with a cliff on one side and waves on the other. By Alexandra Nikolova via Unsplash.
“Time doesn’t go in a straight line, and we are not in a closed system.” – Tyson Yunkaporta, from Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
For the past 20 years, the Interaction Institute for Social Change has supported many social change networks to launch and evolve. Over that time, we have consistently encountered certain mindsets that are more open to a network way of working. Those minds tend to be more tolerant and receptive of the reality of uncertainty and change. They understand that things in our world are always in flux and that there are real limits to the human tendency to want to control situations. Those who struggle tend to expect change to happen in a straight line: set a goal, make a plan, execute it step by step. Networks rarely work that way.
Working effectively in networks for social change means leading with flexibility. Given the fluid and complex conditions in which most of us live, it’s impossible for any of us to know exactly what must be done to address a particular “issue,” much less keep what should ideally be a diverse and collectively empowered group moving forward together. That’s why the strongest networks spread out responsibility (the ability to respond and take action). When more people have “the ability to respond,” not just a few people at the top, networks become both more resilient and more influential.
The other thing that an effective network requires is trust between people. The old saying that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” doesn’t come true by shoehorning everyone into one way of acting. Rather, it happens when everyone is “doing what they do best and connecting to the rest” as they aim for a common north star. This may sound chaotic, but it actually mirrors the power of “self-organization” in Nature, of which we are all a part! And what can help manage it is the right amount of coordination, communication, and curation (of information) so there is shared awareness of what the different parts are up to.
Another powerful aspect of networks is what is called “emergence” – innovation and new forms of organizing that result from diverse members interacting with one another without too many constraints. New thinking and insights come from the meeting of different fields, experiences, and perspectives. Creativity often comes through initially expanding options and inviting divergent thinking, which takes us away from the initial impulse to control.
The inconvenient truth is that networks, like Life itself, are…inconvenient. When we work hard to try to control and simplify them into linearity and predictability, we end up taking the vitality and potential out of them. While that may give us a short-term sense of being on top of things, the messiness will find some way of getting to us.
Image Description: Illustration of a pale blue, softly clouded sky crossed by several black power lines. Seven black silhouetted birds perch along the wires – a pair close together on the top line, and five more spaced across two lower, crisscrossing lines. By Beatriz Camaleão via Unsplash.
“… Keep reaching out, keep bringing in. This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.” –Marge Piercy, from “The Seven of Pentacles”
Over the past fifteen years, we’ve written various posts on this blog about the many benefits networks can offer the people in them. Networks can inspire us, support us, and help us build new skills. They can give us greater access to information, funding, and other resources. They can offer greater systemic or environmental awareness, pull us out of isolation and make us a part of something larger, and amplify our voice and efforts. And they can bring new partnerships and projects we couldn’t have started alone.
It is also true, however, that not every network or network activity creates all or even most of these effects and outcomes. In other posts, we have looked at a couple of factors that shape whether networks are able to deliver robust value to individual participants and the collective, including how the network is structured and the form that leadership takes. Networks are by no means a “cure all” to social and environmental issues and can easily exacerbate social inequities and extractive practice. That’s why values certainly have a place, as does paying close attention to dynamics of power and privilege.
Individual and collective behavior on a day-to-day basis also has a lot of influence on what networks can create. Here is a list of twenty behaviors for you to consider as part of your network-weaving practice:
Weave connections and “close triangles”. Closing triangles means introducing people to one another, as opposed to networking for one’s own self – creating a mesh or distributed structure rather than a hub-and-spoke structure with you at the center.
Create connections across boundaries/dimensions of difference. Invite and promote diversity in the network, which can contribute to resilience and innovation.
Promote and pay attention to equity throughout the network. Equity here includes ensuring everyone has access to the resources and opportunities that can improve the quality of life and learning. Equity impact assessments are one helpful tool on this front.
Conduct a “mattering audit,”formally or informally, asking “Who is feeling like they are left out/unseen-unheard?” Then reach out!
Think, learn, and work out loud, in the company of others or through virtual means. This contributes to the abundance of resources and learning in the network.
Don’t hoard or be a bottleneck. Keep information and other resources flowing in the network.
Stay curious and ask questions. Draw out other people’s values, knowledge (spoken and unspoken), and other strengths.
Practice good listening. In particular, listen for values, needs, assets, potential, patterns, and themes.
Identify and circulate underutilized strengths and excess capacity in the network.
Promote others and their work.
Express authentic appreciation of others.
Share credit with others.
Embrace shared responsibility for success.
Create and use platforms (in-person convenings and virtual sites) that allow people to find one another, create new connections, match interests/offers with needs, and share information freely.
Curate information and data to make it more accessible, attractive, and digestible.
Support, encourage, and practiceself-organization (letting people organize their own work and decisions, rather than directing it from the top).
Celebrate small and large successes and key developments along the way.
Get comfortable with chaos. Most networks thrive at the edge of what can feel like disorder, at least compared to more formal and hierarchical organizations. Enjoy the exhilarating ride!
Reflect on which of these behaviors you and others in your network, organization, community, and/or networked activities already demonstrate and which you do not.
Which behaviors might you start practicing more intentionally and what might be the benefit of doing so?
What additional behaviors would you add to the list?
Image Description: Illustration of a person with brown skin and long yellow hair leaning forward to smell white dandelion-like flowers, with eyes closed and one hand grabbing the flower’s stem. By Naila Conita via Unsplash.
In July of this year, we said goodbye to a beloved organizational leader and steward with a tenure of 10 years. Her transition didn’t mark the beginning or the end of the transition period we’ve found ourselves in as a team, but it did magnify some of the stretch pains we were already experiencing.
Decision making got murkier, alignment got harder to find, and sustainability started to feel more like an ideal than an actionable commitment. I write this, still in the thick of the challenge and opportunity of this change, as a reminder to my nervous system that there is beauty and learning to be found here. I invite you to share your own reflections as additions to this running list of an attempt to answer – what can transition reveal? So far, this is what I’ve come up with that feels solidified enough to share.
What’s for us will find us
This is one of those affirmations, mantras, that I keep on a sticky note attached to my computer. It’s a grounding reminder to myself that we will move through this in the way we were supposed to. Whether you believe in fate or some grand design or not, I believe there’s wisdom to be found in returning to a foundational trust in the winding path that leads to the abundant future (however different that future may be from current expectations).
A side benefit of rooting in this reminder is that it’s allowed me to hold on more gently and leave space for the emergent, unexpected, and confronting. How freeing it can be to release the tight hold on an outcome when you trust it will be the right one, reached at the right time, by the right people!
Love is a discipline
Organizationally we acknowledge love as a powerful and critical force for change. I’ve been delighted to see love woven into some of the larger discourse within the non-profit sector at large lately. And, this transition has shown me the rigor required to center love not just as a catalyst to change, but to carry you through it.
When I’ve found myself stressed, pressed, and ungrounded, love as an action has felt hard to access and to describe. How do I show up in love for you when your activation is inflaming mine in a way that has my nervous system spinning? How do I find love for the unknown when everyone, myself included, seems to be looking for certainty? Part of the answer for me has been to just commit to it. To slow down, take a beat, and consider what my response would be if it was rooted in love before I share it.
My needs are my responsibility
It may be unsurprising given my work in the people and culture space that I’ve been told I’m a relationship perfectionist. A lot of the labor I do for others is anticipatory. And though I still see the value in thinking three steps ahead, I’ve realized how unhelpful a lot of the assumptions are that go into that kind of work. I’ve found this to be especially the case in a time of transition when change, grief, and fear show up and tug on each of us differently. To assume others’ needs, and that I can tend to them, impedes on agency and self-determination in a way that is neither supportive nor careful.
In the same vein, I can neither expect nor accept others’ assumptions about my needs. Fortunately (and sometimes unfortunately) what I need is up to me to decide. This is not the same as not asking for or accepting help; it’s the opposite! Getting very clear on what support looks like for me and voicing it clearly to those who can offer it demystifies my internal conditions for myself and for them.
Prevention over intervention
There’s a saying we have in our Facilitative Leadership™ for Social Change training – “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of intervention.” It speaks to the fact that a well-designed container can hold a lot more than a flimsy one. Imagine every transparent decision making process, community norm, and clear agenda as fortification and expansion to the sides of a bucket. Every drop of water you intend to fill it with is a process, a desired outcome, a decision, an expressed feeling.
The more fortification people can see, the more trust they have that the bucket can hold heavier and larger amounts of water. The less fortification and trust in the bucket, the higher the risk of water spilling, cracks forming, and alarms being raised out of fear of a flood. It’s a lot more effective to build a strong container at the start than it is to patch a broken one as you go along.
Prevention isn’t the same as assumption, and it’s so important to stay mindful of the distinction. Prevention requires actively seeking clarity on needs and strong facilitation. I admit that determining what those preparatory practices are can be laborious, but as someone with a couple of leaky buckets in my life, I can absolutely confirm it’s worth it.
Different rest for different stress
The final thing I’ll share is around my noticing that my usual stress-busting practices aren’t as effective right now. Creativity has felt elusive and my body’s resisted rest and recovery more persistently than usual. That’s a signal to me that this time of change and disruption is causing a different kind of stress and calling for a different kind of rest.
I’ve found some relief in leaning on one part of my being to rest another. To rest the brain, use the body. To rest the body, use the heart. To rest the heart, use the spirit. What it means to use my body, heart, or spirit shifts depending on what feels most easeful and resonant that day. The most important thing about whatever it may be is to release any expectation of productivity or outcome. Paint with no reference, dance with no choreography, and meditate for stillness over revelation.
May what’s for us find us. May love guide us always. May needs be clear and met. May the container hold us. May the rest be real. And ultimately, may change be a good thing.
Image Description: Illustration of a faceless person with dark brown skin in a light blue shirt against a black background, with a red swirling tornado or storm cloud obscuring their head. Colorful red, pink, yellow, and blue marks and symbols surround the figure. By Allison Saeng via Unsplash.
As we came into 2026, all indications were that there would be no slowing down of what I have been calling The Great Unraveling. Indeed, things feel like they are only accelerating and that virtually no one is being spared the pain and discomfort of mounting pressures.
I personally have been experiencing this quite deeply for the past year, and most prominently in many of my most intimate social and professional circles. I had spent the better part of several years before that doing my own individual healing work, some of which I have written about here. And of course, given that we are interconnected with everyone and everything else, at least at a certain level, there is no healing that insulates us from the suffering of others. In fact, according to many of my healers and elders I know, if we are truly healing, part of “the arrangement” seems to be that we become more – not less – open to vulnerability in the world.
Nothing in so-called “mainstream culture” suggests that this is something we should chase after. And yet, what I have learned is that something much larger than our individual preferences has the ultimate say in this.
However you might characterize the forces that are pushing dominant systems to the brink, one thing seems clear – not everything that is unraveling can, or should, be held together. This does not mean that we should stop standing up for justice and care. Quite the opposite. But it does mean to be open to the bigger energies of change, beyond sick power-hungry people, that are intent on cleaning house and making space for something else.
What is ours to protect? What is ours to transform? And what may need to come apart? Some discernment is crucial in picking one’s battles. And that is one of the big lessons I have learned, along with a few others…
– The unraveling is unavoidable. I repeat, the unraveling is unavoidable. It has been very important for me to adopt this mantra. What we have had as dominant systems for such a long time (at least in the United States) are death traps. The bigger forces of Life are letting us know this LOUDLY. It is time for a new way of doing and being.
– A corollary to the reminder above is the teaching from energy systems science that things have to come apart in order to come together better. This has been the case even in relationships that to some extent might have seemed to be “okay” on the outside. If Fierce Love is what’s taking hold right now (and I believe it is, despite some outward appearances), then that means there is a lot of reckoning to be done, and connections forged in distorted or harmful conditions may be in need of deep cleansing.
– Having all of the feelings that flow from what is happening has also been very important. This includes grief, anger, fear, relief, love, hope, and disappointment. And it has also been important to make sure that my feelings are not running the show. Keeping things bottled up is just not healthy – the pressure gets too great. Allowing them to flow is a key part of the necessary release.
– Maintaining connections with those who can meet me, feed me and be fed by me has been essential. More mutualism feels like it is being called for. And this has meant that my world has gotten smaller at times, which does not necessarily mean I have less. Sometimes a smaller circle can create more room for honesty, reciprocity, and care.
– As the unraveling accelerates, I sense how helpful it is to allow change to happen while alsogrounding in the energies of the Earth that are here to support us.
– Keep practicing what makes another world possible. Some guiding principles and practices for this have included:
Keeping the faith and being resolute that a better world is possible and actually wants to come forward;
Remembering the many things for which I am grateful; and
Practicing fierce love, balancing generosity with requests for accountability.
This is what “so now what?” looks like for me. Not figuring out how to stop the unraveling, not pretending that it isn’t painful, nor surrendering our commitments to justice, care, or one another.
And it means learning how to stay present as things come apart, what to release, what to protect, what to grieve, and what to nurture. Learning to recognize that the ending of one way of being can also be the beginning of another.
How about you? How are you navigating the unavoidable unraveling without losing hold of what matters most?
Image Description: Illustration of a person with long black hair and brown skin, eyes closed, head bowed, standing amid dark tree trunks, winding gold vines, and pale blue and cream leaf-like plants against a dark background. By Eduardo Ramos via Unsplash.
This year marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. We know the promise it made – that all men are created equal – was never actually extended to all men, much less to all who are not men. Some of us who were not part of the “all” are still out here trying to realize that promise. It turns out that’s a lot like gardening: you don’t plant something without tilling the soil. And you don’t plant once and call the work done until harvest time. You keep showing up. I’ve been reminded of this as I’ve been showing up to a much less noble fight in my own yard.
My yard and the area across our fence along the train tracks have been invaded by Japanese Knotweed, an aggressive invasive species that crowds out local plant life. It’s actually all over our neighborhood. I’ve been battling it for years, without much success. Its persistence in the face of my efforts reminds me of racism, sexism, and all the related isms.
What might we learn from the struggle against invasive weeds in our work for a more beautiful, sustainable, and just world? Let’s start with the basics about dealing with invasives (with thanks to Mass Audubon, Town of Concord MA, and University of New Hampshire Extension).
Removal. Pull up weeds by the roots, cut or dig with hand tools, smother, or apply chemicals to the roots or stump (of a larger plant). Your choice of methods depends on the plant and how pervasively it has invaded your space.
This has been my major focus. Every few days or weeks, the pulling begins again. Even when I spent time cutting back the plants on the other side of our property line, It takes a lot of effort, and it feels good for a moment to see the work of my hands – no seedlings today! Still, I know that I’m only addressing the current situation, not actually solving the problem. I know the plants will return – and each year they get a little taller and a little thicker than the year before.
Disposal. It’s not enough to cut or pull and simply drop the plants because they are likely to drop seeds that create new plants. Depending on the type of weed and how easily it spreads, you might need to burn, chip, bag, bury, drown, tarp-and-dry, or drop at a composting facility (if they haven’t gone to seed).
This has been a major mistake for me. I simply pull or cut and throw the uprooted plants over the fence. Somehow, even though I know better, I’m not doing better!
Photos by Cynthia Silva Parker
Prevention and replacement. Nature – including soil – abhors a vacuum. So, it’s important to plant or replant fast-growing native plants quickly in order to “outcompete” any residual weeds. And, it’s essential to monitor for reappearing seedlings and uproot them quickly.
I haven’t gotten to this point in the struggle against the Knotwood because I’m constantly pulling up plants that spring up in the middle of grass or areas covered in mulch or stones. They’ve even poked through the stones in my house’s pudding stone foundation – ugh! I simply haven’t done the work of really clearing the space and replanting it with healthy local alternatives.
So what does this have to do with uprooting racism, sexism, and the other isms and creating healthy, equitable, and inclusive organizations and communities? Maybe everything!
Removal. How often do we treat racism, sexism, and other isms as if they are things we can uproot with a specific intervention that is typically unequal to the task (like my constant pulling up of seedlings), and then are surprised when they reappear in the same spot or somewhere else in our work. Remember what Jay Smooth taught us: It’s important to treat the “removal” of racism (and other isms) like dental hygiene (a maintenance routine we have to do every day), rather than a tonsillectomy (a one-and-done situation). And, to extend his metaphor, let’s make sure we’re using a toothbrush and toothpaste that will really get our teeth clean.
Let’s also make sure that we are not relying on interventions at the internalized or interpersonal levels (e.g., awareness building and interpersonal skills) to make changes at the institutional or structural levels (e.g., policy and practice change, shifts in cultural narratives, power building by and with those most impacted by the isms and deliberate efforts to work at the intersections of multiple isms). And let’s not do what I’ve been doing with my weeds – put in a lot of effort and feel good momentarily about things that are not actually solving the problem at the root.
Disposal. The effort to “dispose” of racism takes many forms: changing laws and policies; ensuring adequate representation at decision-making tables (organizationally and societally); ensuring that we communicate history accurately so we don’t repeat the errors and transgressions of the past, and resisting efforts to ignore present-day manifestations of racism and its impact on individuals and communities; replacing stereotypes and racist tropes in popular culture and discourse with liberating and enlivening images and stories of hope and progress in the face of oppression; and working against voter suppression and other policies designed to reduce participation in our democracy. Let’s not repeat my mistake with weeds, just dropping the weeds I’ve pulled without proper disposal, so that they can simply reroot themselves.
Prevention and Replacement. Here is where I am both hopeful and concerned. In the U.S., we are seeing a competition between competing visions for the future. There are many who long for, and are actively working for a return to a time American “greatness” – which typically means a time when white men were in charge, everyone else had a place lower in the social, economic, and political hierarchy, and the needs of the planet and our non-human relatives were overlooked in favor of profit for corporations and wealthy individuals. At the same time, many of us long for and are working toward a country that practices its founding values, and where all people and the natural world are able to thrive, not barely survive. A 250th anniversary is as good a moment as any to ask honestly which of these visions we are actually tending. Let’s not ignore the need to clear the ground and plant something better.
In this moment of a “great unraveling,” I’m reminded of the 4 Rs of Social Transformation: Reform, Resist, Recreate, and Reimagine. If we ever needed all 4 Rs, we need them now – to reform and restore practices by public and private institutions that create more diversity, equity, and inclusion; to resist efforts to roll back the clock to pre-Civil Rights era levels of representation in the political, economic, and cultural life of the nation; and to reimagine a multiracial democracy that lives up to its founding values; and to recreate networks and local ecosystems (both natural and social) that enable people and the natural world to thrive.
What does prevention and replacement look like in practice?
We at IISC have spent 30+ years working alongside organizations and networks trying to do more than pull weeds. What we’ve learned is that prevention and replacement requires investing in conditions for collective action, not just individual awareness. It requires building the relational infrastructure that allows people to move together over time. It requires deep exploration of what drives the current conditions, willingness to discover effective solutions, and creativity to imagine a future yet unborn. And it requires leaders who can sustain themselves in the midst of it all.
That’s why we offer spaces like Gathering to Rise, a leadership cohort for Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders, alongside our facilitation, training, and network weaving work. Because you can’t plant something beautiful if the people doing the planting are running on empty. And it’s why we guide people to become Facilitative Leaders who can create the conditions for self-empowerment so that people can work together to pursue their wildest dreams together.
If your organization is ready to move beyond pulling weeds to clear the ground and build something that can actually work for all, whatever the next 250 years ask of us, we’d love to start a conversation with you.
Image Description: Abstract illustration of multiple pink, green, and cream-colored lines converging and intertwining at a central point on a dark blue background, with a finger touching the center. By Chloé via Unsplash.
The other day, in a fundraising conversation at IISC, we were discussing the perception that several funders that we know are moving away from investing in intermediaries – capacity-builders and those who support the infrastructure of the nonprofit ecosystem. Instead, they are focused on getting money to the “front lines” – community organizers and movement leaders, who are often those first in the line of fire from those who wield their power inappropriately.
In certain regards it makes sense to bring financial resources right to the action-takers and service providers. But it also made me scratch and shake my head when I think of it with the framing from energy systems science (ESS), a field that looks at how systems thrive and regenerate.
What Healthy Systems Teach Us
One of the valuable observations from ESS is that healthy complex systems tend to have combinations of many small entities, fewer mid-sized ones, and even fewer large ones, that are linked and create important pathways for the flow of crucial resources. Think of a river delta, a tree branching structure, or veins in a leaf or in our human bodies (see graphic below).
This structure helps resources, information, and support flow throughout a system so that communities on the ground can be strong amidst unpredictable turbulence (environmental, economic, cultural, political). This is crucial for any complex system’s “regenerative capacity,” or its ability to maintain long-term vitality, whether we are talking about banking and finance structures, complex human communities, or more-than-human ecosystems.
The Danger of a “Top Heavy” System
Something that can make a system fragile and unsustainable is when it becomes “top-heavy” – those at the top of the structure (aka “functional” hierarchy) suck up and hoard too many resources, essentially starving the rest of the system. This is obvious to many of us in these times of hyper-extraction and oligarchic capitalism. Another phenomenon that destabilizes a structure is when there is a hollowing out of the middle. For example, if you only have very large banks and/or other financial structures along with very small would-be recipients of funding, those on “the bottom” can easily get overwhelmed. And the entire system becomes destabilized with its “teetering top.” What is needed is a mitigating/mediating structure (for example, mid-sized banks/financial organizations) that can handle the flows from the top and then sustainably pass funding and other resources along.
The Missing Middle
We are hearing stories of many people who are suffering because of the shrinking middle – small municipalities and organizations suddenly receiving large amounts of federal funding they do not have the staffing or infrastructure to manage, and people spiraling in anger/outrage for lack of mediators who might otherwise help hold spaces for peaceful discussion and debate between (and among) those on top and those on the bottom. We also see growing challenges in the shrinking space of intentional and collective learning, which we can think about as sitting between total comfort with status quo and change that takes us into our “panic zone.” When a funder/financier says that they don’t think that “the middle” matters at this time, they are essentially contributing to the hollowing out and a further weakening of crumbling systems.
As an organization that plays a connective function, we at IISC know the value of “mediating” in a variety of ways (including through facilitation, convening, network weaving), as well as distributing key lessons from and to the roots (training and coaching). Others play crucial roles that can provide different kinds of cover, buffer and support for those who feel under threat and/or are overstretched. The point being that so much value is created in these spaces between “top and bottom,” core and periphery. And we are seeing this value being increasingly devalued.
Bridging Toward What Comes Next
The middle can definitely be a lonely place these days. And of course, that matters to those of us who can function as connectors in a variety of ways. But it is also true that this should matter to everyone, including funders/financiers, because the “missing middle” will continue to contribute to bloating the top, overwhelming and/or starving the bottom and risk taking us into very dark times.
Note: This post was originally published in October 2017. We have updated and republished it in response to recent enthusiasm around the network principles.
Image Description: Illustration of an interconnected root system spreading across the frame. Thick black branches from a big tree trunk are shown against a cream-colored background. Contour-like lines flow through the tree. By Andania Humaira via Unsplash.
“Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance.”
– Tagore
Over the past several years of supporting networks for social change, we at IISC have been constantly evolving our understanding of what is new and different when we call something a network, as opposed to a coalition, collaborative or alliance. On the surface, much can look the same, and one might also say that coalitions, collaboratives and alliances are simply different forms of networks. While this is true, it is also the case that not every collaborative form maximizes network effects, including small world reach, rapid dissemination, adaptability, resilience, and system change. In this regard, experience shows that a big difference maker is when participants in a network (or an organization, for that matter) embrace new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing.
The following revised list continues to evolve as our own practice and understanding does, and it speaks to a number of network principles to guide thinking and action:
1. Adaptability instead of control
Thinking in terms of networks means leading with an interest in adaptation over time. Given the complexity of the situations we are often called to help address, it is difficult for any actor or “leader” to know exactly what must be done, much less keep a diverse and decentralized social structure moving in lockstep. Iterative design and adaptive strategy serve us better.
2. Contribution before credentials
You may have heard the story about the custodial staff person in a shoe company who anonymously submitted his idea for a new shoe design during a company-wide contest, and won. Or the homeschooled teenager who contributed tremendously helpful information on nitrogen pollution to an open and crowdsourced call for research. “Expertise” and seniority can serve as a bottleneck and buzzkill in many organizations, where ego gets in the way of excellence and vital experience. If we are looking for new and better thinking, it should not matter from whence it comes.
“Your generosity is more important than your perfection.”
-Seth Godin
3. Giving first, not taking
You’ll see it when you create it. Often, people are drawn to networks by the promise of abundance, but stand back and wait for something to happen. The key to generativity is generosity, to being first to make a humble offering – of ideas, truth, courage, attention, and other resources. We often fear that there isn’t enough to go around. Yet that scarcity becomes self-fulfilling when we hold back our experiences, gifts, and capacity instead of sharing them generously. For more on the importance of giving, see Adam Grant’s work.
4. Resilience and redundancy instead of rock stardom
You see it on sports teams all the time. When the star player goes down, if the team is built around said star, so goes the team. Resilient networks are built upon redundancy of function and a richness of interconnections, so that if one node goes away, the network can adjust and continue its work.
5. Diversity and divergence rather than the usual suspects and forced agreement
New thinking comes from the meeting of different fields, experience, and perspectives. Preaching to the choir gets us the same old (and tired) hymn. Innovation is not the result of dictating solutions or choosing from existing options. It comes from expanding possibilities and moving beyond convergent thinking toward a more creative, design-oriented approach. And network action is not about everyone engaging in one large collective effort. It is about cooperation, connection, and many people contributing in parallel ways.
6. Intricacy and flow, not bottlenecks and hoarding
Networks are key to supporting life and liveliness – life is after all, a network. A constant threat to aliveness is rigidity, hoarding, and exclusion. Economically, we are seeing plenty of evidence of this, pushing us towards what Jane Jacobs once called socio-economic “necrosis.” With hyper-concentration of resources, patterns of exclusion, and growing inequality, we see the entire system put at risk. The antidote is robust, diversified local networks that are connected to other such networks, which are collectively able to move resources of many kinds fluidly from and to all parts of the social body. Keep reaching out, keep interconnecting, keep things flowing.
As with any complex living system, when a group of people comes together, we cannot always know what it is that they will create. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Vying for the predictable means short-changing ourselves of new possibilities, which is one of the great promises of networks. Furthermore, network effects and change stem from many different experiments rather than looking for the single best answer.
8. Shift focus from core to the periphery
As living entities, networks are defined by the nature and quality of their edges. The core of the network tends to be made up of those who are most connected to others in the network, as well as interested in and engaged in the work (albeit in some cases through exclusionary dynamics of power and privilege). Those on the edge, or periphery, may be less connected and engaged, and also bring considerable strength, to the extent that they provide lessons about adaptation, a willingness and ability to play in different spaces, and have connections to other important domains. In many cases, there is strength in following the lead of the margins. As Ceasar McDowell says:
“If you take a tent and you stake it far out at the margins … the middle is always covered. And the further out you stake it the stronger the structure you get. And why is that? Because in our systems and our social systems the people at the margins are actually living with the failures of the systems. And they are creating adaptive solutions to them. So when we design to take care of them we build stronger systems for everyone.”
“Network theory suggests that what a system becomes emerges from the complex, responsive relationships of its members, continuously developing in communication.”
– Esko Kilpi
9. From working in isolation to working with others and/or out loud
I spoke to a leader of an amazing organization in Pennsylvania who was bemoaning the situation where a number of his newer staff thought that “getting the job done” meant paying attention to the tasks on their list and working on them in an independent and efficient way. What they were not doing was involving others, communicating about what they were working on, where they were in their process and what they were learning as a result. One network mantra I have heard is “Never work alone.” Or to put a more positive spin on it, “Work in good company.” Why? Because our thinking and ideas are made better by others. Furthermore, sharing our work is crucial since communication is the lifeblood of networks (and networked organizations) if they are to be intelligently adaptive and resilient to changing and challenging times. Even if we are physically alone in our workspaces, we can show and share our work in helpful ways, to ourselves and others, using virtual tools.
10. From “Who’s the Leader?” to “We’re the Leaders!”
Leadership can be a confusing and fraught concept. In certain quarters there is still glorification of and deference given to heroic individuals, with little recognition of the interdependent nature of, well, everything! The late Mila N. Baker made the case that the individualized and command-and-control leadership lexicon is grossly insufficient for our changing, complex, and interconnected world. She promoted the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) IT architectures as models for thinking about leadership and how people organize themselves. In P2P arrangements, everyone becomes a generative and recipient node in a network, and has easy access to other nodes. This embodiment of leadership is stymied by rigid hierarchies, fixed positional authority, and purely transactional mindsets (without regard to underlying and authentic relationships). Flipping this script means seeking arrangements where everyone leads and follows, trust and reciprocity are fundamental values, and thriving is linked to connection.
What might the integration of these principles do to the way you lead and do your work? What opportunities and outcomes might be created?
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The Interaction Institute for Social Change is seeking an Interim President to support our organization through a pivotal transitional period which we estimate to be 12 to 18 months, subject to agreement between the Interim President and the Board of Directors.
As the Interim President, you will be responsible for tending to four major priorities: Transition Support and Guidance, Organizational Culture and Wellbeing, Revenue and Strategy Development and External Relationships, and Governance and Board Collaboration.
While participating in the day-to-day activities, this role will support the organization’s overall sense of stability and vision by guiding us through this transitional period and collaboratively developing the recommendations and changes needed to move the organization into its next chapter. This role will speak to a person who is energized by supporting the staff of a mission-driven organization in the advancement of racial equity and social justice, specifically with an eye toward organizational change, network building, and strategy development.
This position is offered as a full-time role, including the competitive compensation and benefits package offered to all staff: a 4-day workweek, virtual office equipment and utility reimbursement, a generous PTO package, 100% medical, dental, vision coverage for individual employees, spouses, domestic partners and dependents, and more.
The Transition
Our current President has served us unwaveringly for 10 years, deepening our commitment to shared leadership and social change, both internally and with our clients and partners. As we continue much of the transformative work that we’ve done as an organization for the last 30 years, we also see this moment as a time to expand our impact, growth, and financial strategies. The Interim President will be a critical stabilizing and supportive force, working with our staff and Board of Directors to help IISC shape our strategic initiatives, deepen our shared leadership, and lead us through this next chapter until we bring in a new President in 2027.
The Details
Location: 100% Remote
Start Date: Mid-July to Early-August
Salary Range: $131,700 – $151,600
Travel: Variable, up to two days a month on average
Reports To: Chair of the Board of Directors, serves as voting member of the Board of Directors
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In our last blog, we explored the importance of clarifying your North Star: the purpose, values, and vision that anchor your organization in times of uncertainty. That clarity is essential. But clarity alone is not enough.
When predictions are shaky and change is constant, nonprofit leaders are navigating conditions that feel more complex than ever:
Shifting funding and political landscapes
Increasing demand for services
Workforce burnout and capacity constraints
Rapid political, social, and technological change
Traditional strategic planning, built on stability and predictability, no longer meets this moment. This is why we are seeing organizations shift toward strategic direction-setting: an approach where the direction is clear, but the path remains flexible
Within strategic direction setting:
North Star = Direction (what stays constant)
Scenario Planning = Conditions (what may change)
Strategies = How we move (what adapts)
And within this approach, scenario planning is a critical practice. But the question remains: How do we stay purposeful when the conditions around us are constantly shifting?
Why Scenario Planning Matters
In times of uncertainty, our ability to radically imagine multiple futures becomes essential. Not only to stay grounded and hopeful, but also to prepare for changing conditions while holding onto our North Star.
Scenario planning is one of the most useful tools for doing exactly that.
Our colleagues at Building Movement Project, in their 2026 Brief on Solidarity: Lessons from a Year of Crisis and Change, noted that organizations can no longer afford to treat scenario planning as an occasional exercise. Increasingly, it is becoming a necessary practice for preparing, protecting, and adapting in these times.
At its core, scenario planning is the process of imagining and exploring multiple potential futures based on a range of uncertainties. Organizations often try to plan for one expected future, but in times of uncertainty, it is more useful to prepare for multiple possible futures while staying grounded in your core purpose, values, and North Star.
Scenario planning helps us imagine and shape the future we want, rather than only reacting to the future we get.
Ask: What do we know, what can we imagine, and what remains uncertain? How can we hold the future lightly as we plan and move with purpose?
This is what makes scenario planning for multiple futures such a powerful component of strategic direction setting. It helps organizations maintain both clarity and flexibility.
Making Scenario Planning Real
Scenario planning does not require predicting the future perfectly. Instead, it invites organizations to reflect on a range of possible conditions and consider how they might respond while staying grounded in their values, purpose, and North Star.
This can look like:
Identifying the external forces most likely to shape your work
Exploring a few plausible future scenarios
Reflecting on what opportunities, risks, and decisions each scenario raises
Identifying strategies and priorities that would remain important across multiple futures
Organizations might ask:
What happens if funding decreases significantly?
What if community needs increase faster than capacity?
What political, technological, or social shifts could affect our strategy?
What remains essential no matter the conditions?
The goal is not to predict exactly what will happen. The goal is to build readiness, adaptability, and shared understanding so organizations can move with greater clarity.
What Scenario Planning Makes Possible
The scenario planning process provides organizations with an opportunity to:
Stay Grounded in your North Star across different possible futures. This process clarifies what is core to your organization’s purpose and what cannot be compromised, even when strategies need to shift.
Move from Prediction to Preparation. In moments like these, with shifting conditions, scenario planning helps provide clear direction while remaining flexible to changing circumstances. Instead of trying to predict exactly what will happen, organizations can focus on building readiness and flexibility for changing conditions.
Strengthen Decision-Making by reflecting on what decision makes sense across multiple futures and conditions. This leads to resilient long-term decisions, rather than reacting only to immediate pressures.
Build Organizational Nimbleness & Emergence. By anticipating change and responding early, organizations can become more adaptive, identify risks sooner, and better recognize emerging opportunities.
Deepen Strategic Thinking & Collaboration across the organization. Scenario planning encourages organizations to move beyond timelines, tasks, and fixed long-term plans to reflect on current realities, risks, opportunities, possibilities, and strategic actions. In doing so, organizations strengthen their capacity for shared sense-making, collaborative leadership, and collective action.
No matter the scenarios you explore. We don’t need to have all aspects certain to move forward. You need clarity of purpose and readiness to adapt.
Image Description: Illustration of a hand with a medium-dark skin tone holding a dandelion as its seeds blow away in the wind against a blue background. By Pablo De Rossi via Unsplash.
After ten years at the Interaction Institute for Social Change, I will be transitioning to my next opportunity. Leading IISC has been one of the most powerful and evolutionary experiences of my career, and even though it’s hard to leave, I am so proud of what we have built together and what this transition makes possible.
How We Have Built Together
Decades ago, I met Renae Gray, a Black woman activist and group facilitator, who sat cross-legged in a chair, raised her hands to the group, and animatedly led us in a conversation about strategy and organizing. She wasn’t the voice in the room; she was the container through which we opened our hearts and processed the harsh realities of our failing justice campaigns. That experience shaped how I came to understand leadership and facilitation – it’s about creating the conditions for others to step fully into their own clarity and power.
That thread carried me through my early experiences with facilitation, through learning from leaders like Valerie Batts of VISIONS, Inc., and eventually to IISC: as a participant, partner, and later as a member of the team. When IISC faced financial challenges and a leadership transition, I stepped in as Interim President, and together we navigated a period that required steadiness and trust from all of us.
When I was formally hired as President, we anchored our work in racial equity as a central driver of collaboration, strengthened our financial position, navigated COVID, and responded to a growing demand for racial justice. We leaned into shared leadership and deepened our work with clients, partners, and networks. We received $2 million without asking and used it in service of our mission and community care.
Transitions as a Strength
At IISC, we have learned that transitions are a natural part of work. As Miriam Messinger, our former Director of Practice, wrote in Passing the Torch: What It Means to Transition with Care, leadership changes areoften treated as crises, when they can instead be opportunities to build trust, deepen relationships, and grow collective capacity.
Over more than 30 years, the IISC team has developed practices for leading through uncertainty and organizational transitions. Shared leadership, collaboration, and love are part of how the organization operates and continues to grow.
In July, I will step into a new role as Director of Transformation at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where I will work with the team to advance its networked organization grounded in racial equity, leadership, and community.
Collective Courage
I have been shaped by you and will carry you with me into this position and my future.
I have deep trust in the people carrying forward IISC’s work. New leadership is taking shape, fresh ideas are emerging, and IISC is helping communities at every level cultivate collective courage, love, and vibrant networks.
Stand tall in these times for collaboration, for racial equity, and never forget how powerful you are, and we are together.
Make Change Stick Beyond the MeetingTurn ideas into agreements that stick, and keep change going after the meeting ends. Perfect for teams stuck in “great conversation, little action.”
