Image Description: Illustration of a person with dark brown skin, wearing a pink shirt and red shorts, sitting on large green leaves beside oversized white flowers, against a soft blue sky with clouds. By Owl Illustration Agency.
In 2020, the world had shut down, and George Floyd’s murder had sparked a global “racial reckoning.” Nonprofit organizations rushed to release statements about racial justice, boards scrambled to diversify their leadership, and suddenly, Black and brown women were being elevated into executive director and CEO roles at an unprecedented rate.
But behind the public commitments and DEI statements was a different story. These newly appointed leaders were calling IISC, exhausted and isolated, because they were inheriting organizations deeply embedded in racism, with fragile budgets and boards that didn’t understand or trust their leadership styles. They were expected to repair harm, transform systems, and lead boldly – all while navigating inadequate resources and limited support. Our movements cannot survive without these leaders, and yet far too many were and still are leaving.
Inside IISC, a group of Black and brown women began talking and recognized what was happening. These leaders didn’t need another technical training; rather, they needed space to exhale, to speak honestly, to be affirmed rather than questioned. They needed room to reset, reflect, and rebuild confidence in who they already were.
Out of those conversations, the first cohort was born. And today, that work continues as Gathering to Rise, now open to Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders.
Building Space During Hard Times
Beginning in 2020, IISC launched a leadership cohort specifically for women of color executive directors and CEOs, made possible through partnerships with the Boston Foundation and Boston Women’s Fund. Across three cohorts through 2023, 45 women of color leaders participated in two online cohorts during the pandemic and one in-person.
Facilitated by Kelly Frances Bates and Aba Taylor, and enriched with coaching from IISC affiliates Adeola Oredola, Eugenia Acuña, Andrea Nagel, and nisha purushotham, the program was intentionally designed to be different from traditional leadership development. Participants weren’t expected to perform professionalism or leave parts of themselves behind; instead, space was created for humanity, honesty, and rest. Leaders gathered in ways that felt embodied and relational, sharing openly about what leadership was costing them and what it was offering them.
Through a blend of coaching, online and in-person cohort sessions, and small “sister pods” for deeper connection, the program explicitly affirmed culturally grounded leadership styles rather than pressuring participants to conform to dominant norms. Leaders spoke about growing confidence and power, setting boundaries, and feeling less alone than they had in years. One participant shared that the program had saved their life during a period of intense stress.
At the time, there were very few programs designed specifically for BIPOC women leaders through a liberatory lens. Applications exceeded capacity in every cohort.
Where the early cohorts asked how leaders could sustain themselves before burnout set in, today’s context feels different. Many leaders are already carrying years of accumulated exhaustion, so the question has shifted to: how do we recover, reconnect, and continue without losing ourselves?
Carrying the Lineage Forward
Gathering to Rise is not a replica of the original cohorts; it’s shaped by this moment while maintaining clear continuity. Adeola Oredola and nisha purushotham, who served as coaches and advisors to the original pilots, are now stewarding this next chapter, bringing deep connection to the lineage of care and relational leadership that defined the early programs. C. Payal Sharma, an IISC Affiliate Consultant/Trainer, and Amy Casso, a Senior Associate at IISC, were also integral to iterating and evolving the offering, helping ensure it remains responsive, grounded, and true to its purpose.
The current cohort expands the original vision, now welcoming Black, Indigenous, Latine, Arab, Middle Eastern, North African, Asian, and Pacific Islander women and gender-expansive leaders. We’re carrying forward: a space centered on care rather than performance, the integration of personal and leadership transformation, coaching as a core element, community over competition, the affirmation of culturally grounded leadership styles, and an honest space for grief, joy, exhaustion, and imagination.
This current version also responds directly to where we are now, centering ancestral wisdom, radical imagination, liberatory practice, and collective leadership at a time when old systems are unraveling.
It’s intentionally built first for an online experience – a choice rooted in access. Online participation allows caregivers, parents, people with disabilities, leaders with limited travel budgets, and those balancing demanding workloads to engage fully.
An Ongoing Commitment
This work has always been grounded in real need. We’re continuing because when leaders are supported in culturally grounded, relational, and affirming spaces, they’re more likely to stay connected to their work, communities, and sense of purpose. Rather than trying to preserve a program, we’re trying to keep our people going.
Gathering to Rise stands on the shoulders of what came before. It carries forward a simple intention: to help leaders reconnect with their gifts, strengthen their capacity to navigate change, and ensure that those who carry so much for our movements don’t have to carry it alone.
If you’re interested in learning more or being notified about future cohorts, please sign up for updates. If you’re a funder, partner, or ally, we welcome conversations about how we might collectively sustain and expand spaces like this over the long term. Get in touch with us.
Image Description: Illustration of a silhouetted person sitting inside a dark cave, looking out toward a calm blue ocean and horizon beyond the cave opening. By Beatriz Camaleão.
So many groups, organizations, and networks that we at Interaction Institute for Social Change supported in 2025 struggled with capacity and focus. So much has been coming at all of us that it can feel difficult to do anything more than respond to the momentary needs.
In an effort to help people stay grounded and strategic as they responded to funding cuts, legal challenges, hunger and housing needs, and physical threats, and to rise a bit off the “dance floor” to have a “balcony” perspective, we have found a few things helpful.
This is not an exhaustive list, but it speaks to some of what we are seeing as fundamentals for navigating ahead:
• Continue to create space for grounding and embodied practices to prevent nervous systems from constantly firing.
• Create opportunities for people to share what they are feeling, for real, as a way of moving intense emotion through their bodies so that it is not stuck, looping, and draining them.
• Bring in the so-called “Eisenhower Matrix” to conversations, asking people to consider where “urgency” and “importance” meet, and when they fall into the habit of responding to every little unimportant thing as if it is a crisis. Encourage them to think about doing more in the important and non-urgent quadrant.
• Bring the “Impact Matrix” to conversations, and ask people to consider the correlation between effort and impact. Ideally, we should be conserving as much energy as possible in these times and looking for opportunities where less effort can yield more impact, while ramping down what requires a lot of energy with little to show for it.
• Invite people to find even brief moments for strategic reflection as they navigate various kinds of real crises. An example of this is work I did last year with a regional food security network as it responded to the federal SNAP cuts. As this amazing coalition organized itself in rapid response mode, I provided a shared document that people could access on their laptops and phones with columns for people to note: (1) what they were learning about both needs and opportunities “out there”, (2) what they were experiencing as strengths of their network, and (3) where they were seeing gaps in and needs for strengthening the network.
There is a lot that will continue to ripple through systems as they unravel and as we iterate our way into the better. Along with practices for “transitional hygiene,” staying focused, strategic, and collaborative will be our collective superpower.
What have you found helpful in keeping eyes and efforts on what matters most?
If your organization, network, or partnership is navigating similar terrain and could use support in creating space for reflection, strengthening collaboration, or sharpening strategy, we’re here. Reach out to explore how we might partner with you in this season.
Image Description: Illustration of a hand holding a lit match, with a small red-orange flame against a warm gradient background of orange and gold. By Ubaid E. Alyafizi via Unsplash.
This year, I’m having an especially hard time saying “Happy New Year” given all that has transpired in just the past three weeks. The list would take up an entire post of its own, but I’ll name the bombing in Nigeria, the military-interevention-called-law-enforcement-action to capture of Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores and threats against Columbia and Mexico in a jingoistic revival of the Monroe Doctrine, threats to take Greenland, the murder of Renee Nicole Good and subsequent lies about it, and symbolic actions like renaming the Kennedy Center and the proposal to put the president’s face on US currency. Are you exhausted yet?!
“Recognize that we are already living under an authoritarian regime.” This is not just toxic, polarized politics as usual, and the solutions will have to go well beyond winning seats in Congress in 2026 or the White House in 2028. Among other things, there are institutions and norms to build and rebuild, and hearts and minds to shift and inspire. She reminds us that authoritarianism is not coming; it’s already here. The murder of Renee Nicole Good and the brazen lies about the situation by the president and his minions give more evidence to that fact, on top of all the other mess of the past two weeks alone.
If you’re not convinced, just reflect on all the Trump regime has done to consolidate presidential power and use government institutions to enact retribution and silence dissent, dismantle institutions and norms, upend alliances, exit international institutions, vilify public and civil society efforts to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion, accelerate gerrymandering in an attempt to further consolidate power, strong-arm, threaten, and use military power against leaders around the world, and use symbolic actions to deepen a cult of personality.
“Be louder.” “Articulate the harm that is being done.” Communicate effectively so that people believe that “democracy can deliver.” Be authentic and trustworthy. She reminds us that the authoritarians are intentional about repeating lies so often that they become accepted as truth. We’ve got to keep telling the truth, in clear and compelling ways, even if we don’t see an immediate response. And, she reminds us that more voters sat out the 2024 presidential election (almost 90 million) than voted for the winner (a little over 77 million). There are so many people who need to hear a compelling message about a vision of a better world and the power they have to help create it!
Part of this is being loud about the wins. In a communications landscape that features bad news so prominently, we need to develop the discipline to tell the stories of progress. Here are just a few other reflections on recent progress.
Ordinary people are coming out in larger and larger numbers to protect democracy and to bear witness to aggressive immigration enforcement actions and support their immigrant neighbors.
Several foundation CEOs created United in Advance with the theme that what happens to one of us happens to all of us.
More Black women are being elected to office at all levels of government, reminding us “that representation isn’t symbolic. It’s structural. It’s policy-shaping. It’s democracy-strengthening. And it requires all of us, from the halls of Congress to local organizing meetings to keep building together.”
Find your lane and get busy. “Remember, we don’t have to do everything. You know Everything, Everywhere, All at once. Fantastic name for a movie. Terrible mission statement, but we can all do Something Somewhere Soon.” I love that turn of phrase as an antidote to furious, exhausting effort. Increasingly, we are coming to understand that exhausting ourselves isn’t good for us or for our movements.
I’m on many email and action alert lists and receive requests almost daily to take action on a wide range of issues. Sometimes it’s exhausting, but the good news is that there are a LOT of people doing a LOT of things to block and build. If you’re not sure where to put your precious time and energy, check out networks like MoveOn, 50501, No Kings, Healthcare Not Warfare, Democracy Docket, 18 Million Rising, Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund, Indivisible, Working Families Party, to name just a few. And, these readings could help with some specific action steps to get you started.
And, no matter what lane you’re in, check out Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century for lessons that can help us move forward. You’ve probably heard some of the lessons – like “don’t obey in advance” – even if you haven’t seen this book.
I’d add a few final bits of encouragement from IISC.
Collaborate and strengthen networks. In addition to finding your lane, find ways to connect with folks in other lanes. This could be connecting across issue areas, demographic or geographic communities, or action strategies. This is a moment to deepen and strengthen the collaborative ties that bind and build both the skills and infrastructure to move forward together, even when we don’t agree on everything.
Keep love at the center of it all. Love is the strongest force we have for positive social change. This love isn’t a sentimental feeling. It’s a deep commitment to building a society and institutions that embody shared values. Check out PolicyLink’s A Revolution of the Soul: To realize the unfulfilled promise of our democracy as one where we can all thrive, we must commit to developing an individual and collective soul that can love all. And remember the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., written from a Birmingham jail. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. ” Let’s commit and recommit to caring for our own spirits and for one another as if our lives depended on it, because they do.
In the year to come, may we each do our part to effectively guide people to clearer understanding, deeper resolve, more strategic action, compelling visions of a just, equitable, and sustainable future, and meaningful relationships that sustain our individual collective souls. And may we remain open, grounded, and welcoming to fellow travelers, new and old.
Image Description: An abstract illustration of a teal human silhouette against a dark background filled with flowing pink, orange, and white lines, along with scattered stars and circular shapes. By Gemma Evans via Unsplash.
“Network intelligence is the ability to learn from a diverse group of connections. Wherever you work, look beyond your walls: there are more smart people outside than inside your organization.”
– Reid Hoffman (digital strategist)
2025 has been one for the record books. So many shocks to so many systems, including most nonprofit organizations in this country. Sudden cuts and changes in funding flows, threatening policies, toxic and unstable political leadership, economic uncertainties, culture clashes, literal fires and floods…all resulting in physical and mental health challenges, staffing shortages, and ongoing fatigue teetering towards burnout. We have definitely seen and felt it in our own organization.
In times like these, even finding basic stability can feel unclear. We have written in other posts about the crucial nature of leadership practices that center on care and well-being (see blog here). Those are certainly foundational, and alongside them, we continue to emphasize the importance of leaning into and cultivating strong networks. Networks are a source of resilience, resource-sharing, extended capacity, creativity, and mutual support. They remind us that no one has to navigate uncertainty alone.
What Networks Make Possible When Conditions Are Hard
We know the power of nurturing connections to keep our energy going and flowing. Sometimes that looks like turning to people beyond our organizational walls to be seen and heard, share honestly how we are feeling, and perhaps commiserate. In one place-based network we helped to launch and now co-steward, a community of practice for executive directors has become a crucial space to unburden and not feel so alone.
In another network we have supported on and off for a decade, we have seen how like-minded program directors can mentor one another around practice and innovation. Bringing in perspectives from other organizations and communities can feel like a breath of fresh air – one that can help us see things differently, spark new ideas, and increase energy and enthusiasm.We just recently witnessed this at a national gathering of this network, where a series of “spark talks” about different initiatives happening around the country got people talking excitedly about possibilities, which they carried home with them.
In a multi-state watershed network, we have seen how shared capacity can stabilize the whole ecosystem. Organizations take turns leading based on bandwidth and hand off stewardship when they need a pause. Knowledge-sharing across the network, from grant opportunities to policy updates to new technologies, has become essential for groups trying to stay grounded amid constant change.
We are also seeing more organizations that have needed to shrink explore shared infrastructure with other organizations, from co-locating office space to pooling administrative support. Some ecosystems are even asking a bigger question: What work is each organization best positioned to hold right now? While the losses in these cases are real, there is an upside, as “doing what you do best and connecting to the rest” can support the creation of diverse and interconnected ecosystems, which are inherently more resilient.
Steps Leaders Can Take Now
Whether you are already part of a larger network or starting to build one, nonprofit leaders can begin cultivating the benefits of collective power by:
Keep looking beyond your organizational walls
Map the larger ecosystem of which you are a part
Identify peers and mentors with whom you might connect
Consider where you might let go in the name of doing what you do best
Gauge where you have excess capacity to share with others in your ecosystem, and let them know
Meet with others to discuss where there are collaborative efficiencies to be gained through joint staffing, shared back-office resources, use of technology, and peer-to-peer exchanges
Encourage funders to support convenings/collaborative conversations and invest in stronger ecosystems
In a time when certainty is scarce, networks offer something steadier: collective possibility.
Where might you reach outward, even in a small way, to strengthen the web that can hold you, your team, and your community through what comes next?
Notes from Race Forward’s Just Narratives for Multiracial Solidarity 2025
Image Description: An illustration of a person with brown skin and long dark hair against a yellow background. A cloud-filled sky bursts through the middle of their face as if the space is torn open, revealing blue sky and white swirling clouds bordered by black night sky with stars. By Mariana Cuesta via Unsplash.
Years ago, in my first nonprofit communications role, a colleague asked me why I was shaping my work around what the system allowed (what I thought was “realistic”), instead of imagining a system that actually served us. That question changed everything for me.
At Race Forward’s Just Narratives for Multiracial Solidarity 2025, it felt like the whole convening was grappling with that same tension: What possibilities are we leaving behind because we’ve accepted the limits we were handed? If harmful systems were imagined into existence, what could happen if imagined something better?
Throughout panels, performances, research sessions, and even late-night conversations, imagination wasn’t framed as a soft skill. It was treated as political power, and one we need to take seriously if we want to build something better.
Imagination is the Starting Point
The opening panel reminded us that pointing out what’s broken is only step one. Movements can’t grow without a shared picture of what comes next. Fear can ignite urgency, but it rarely sustains people. It shrinks our sense of who belongs and narrows what feels achievable.
Hope, on the other hand, builds the kind of community that lasts. It expands our sense of belonging, creates room for collaboration, strengthens trust, and helps people stay in the work through long periods of uncertainty. And choosing hope doesn’t mean we just ignore the compounding crises we’re in – it means recognizing that hope requires action, discipline, and a willingness to stick with the work even when progress is slow.
Monica Roa from Puentes put it plainly: “The world is indeed shit, and we can choose to compost it together.” The circumstances are tough, but we are not powerless. And if harmful systems were imagined into existence, then new systems can also be imagined.
Later, a Palestinian dabke performance from Canaan Wellspring reinforced that imagination can also be embodied. Culture, rhythm, and collective movement are forms of political storytelling.
Nikko Viquiera from Race Forward added a grounding point: imagination without action is just delusion. Naming and posting aren’t enough – dreams require steps.
Infrastructure Shapes What Imagination Can Actually Do
Rinku Sen from Narrative Initiative grounded the conversation by discussing infrastructure – not in an abstract policy sense, but in terms of what allows imagination to become reality. We at IISC wrote about the importance of infrastructure a few months ago here. Infrastructure is not only organizations or reports. It’s people’s stories, their capacity, their confidence, their relationships. It’s whether everyday people (not only professionals) have what they need to share narratives that matter.
Jennifer Ng’andu from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation added that infrastructure also includes trust, support for leaders who are under-resourced or targeted, and the relational glue that keeps movements going.
Anna Castro from the Transgender Law Center reminded us that infrastructure isn’t just the bones, it’s the joints. It’s what makes movement possible. And she pointed out that the South has been living with disinvestment long before national headlines caught up. Southern organizers have had to imagine new solutions out of necessity, and there’s a lot to learn from that.
Together, these points made something clear: imagination is powerful, but it needs structure. Without infrastructure, imagination never makes it off the page.
The Hope Gap: When People Support Change but Don’t Believe It’s Possible
One of the clearest connections between imagination and political power came from folks I deeply admire: the BLIS Collective. Their workshop introduced the Hope Gap, the distance between what people support and what they believe is achievable.
Their research shows major gaps in belief:
76% of Black Americans support reparations, but only 21.5% believe it can realistically happen.
80% of Indigenous people support Land Back, but only 19% believe it’s possible.
This pattern extends across many bold policies. People want transformative solutions, but decades of disinvestment, backlash, and political messaging have convinced many that big changes are unrealistic. When people don’t believe change is possible, they disengage or lower their expectations. The Hope Gap isn’t just a barrier to action, but a crisis in political imagination.
The BLIS research is ongoing, so instead of presenting final answers, their workshop taught us how to identify Hope Gaps in our own issue areas. We worked collectively to explore narratives that invite participation rather than resignation.
My biggest takeaway was this: we don’t have to start from scratch. We can learn from what already exists. We can amplify the wins, from reparations efforts to LandBack victories, so they feel possible, repeatable, and real. When we lift up these examples, we normalize the idea that what we imagine together can take root.
Imagination Grows Through Community
Outside the formal sessions, the theme of imagination showed up again in the way people gathered. I spent time tending to old and new relationships, eating and dancing together, laughing through a spontaneous mini-makeover session. At one point, nearly everyone said some version of, “This is why we come.”
These moments truly were the heart of the gathering. They confirmed that narrative work, hope-building, and movement strategy grow through connection, the kind you build by showing up, sharing space, and remembering that people are the reason this work moves at all.
ALOK’s Call to Choose Humanity Over Convention
ALOK Vaid-Menon’s brilliant keynote tied the theme together. They asked why our sector continues to choose convention over humanity. They reminded the audience that our values come from the people who have held and supported us through our lives.
Their central point was that all justice work is connected. Trans justice, racial justice, climate justice, gender justice, disability justice – these are not separate fights. When we act like they are, we weaken all of them. And there are systems intentionally built to keep them separate.
ALOK also named the funder-industrial complex’s role in encouraging fragmentation, but insisted that collaboration is where our movements gain power. We shouldn’t need to justify why justice movements are linked. We should care because people matter.
What I’m Taking With Me
Imagination is political power
Action gives imagination meaning
Infrastructure makes imagination possible
Relationships make imagination sustainable
Hope must be intentionally built, protected, and nurtured
It is not enough to critique the systems we live in. Just like we need better messaging, we also need better imagination to actively build alternatives. And we need the conditions that allow people to believe in what they already want for the world. If fear built the systems we’re fighting, imagination can replace them.
Take a moment to ask yourself and your team:
What possibilities have we dismissed because we assumed they weren’t realistic?
Start naming them, imagining them, and then start building the infrastructure that makes them real.
A Quick Recap of Our LinkedIn Live with Amy Casso & Miriam Messinger
When everything around us feels unstable, “planning” can feel like an impossible task. Budgets fluctuate, uncertainty grows, and teams are stretched thin. During our recent LinkedIn Live, IISC Senior Associate Amy Casso and Director of Practice Miriam Messinger offered a refreshing alternative: Strategic Direction Setting – a more adaptive, human, and justice-centered way to move through complexity.
Rather than forcing organizations into rigid plans that rarely survive contact with reality, Amy and Miriam explored how teams can stay grounded in purpose while navigating uncertainty with clarity and care. They shared insights from the field about burnout, pressure, and the limitations of traditional planning, along with practical ways leaders can build resilience without compromising their values.
The conversation was lively, honest, and rich in insight, from reconnecting to your North Star, to planning for multiple futures, to designing a strategy that centers equity and strengthens collective capacity.
If your organization is seeking a way to think strategically without needing all the answers up front, this 45-minute conversation offers both grounding and inspiration. Watch the recording above or on YouTube here.
Ready to Move from Chaos to Clarity?
If your team or organization is navigating complexity, burnout, or uncertainty and still dreaming of impact, justice, and transformation, we’d love to connect!
Reach out to explore how we can support your team through Strategic Direction Setting. We’ll help you align around what matters most, build courageous collaboration, and chart a course grounded in shared power, visionary leadership, and real-time responsiveness.
Editor’s Note (updated 2025): Originally published in 2016, this piece has been lightly updated to reflect current language around Indigenous fire stewardship and the growing movement to restore cultural burning as a practice of ecological and community care.
Controlled burn in Sequoia National Park. By James Fitzgerald via Unsplash.
I’ve had the pleasure of supporting some important work happening through The Nature Conservancy’s Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network. According to the FAC website, a fire-adapted community “acknowledges and takes responsibility for its wildfire risk, and implements appropriate actions at all levels.” Actions in these fire-threatened communities “address resident safety, homes, neighborhoods, businesses and infrastructure, forests, parks, open spaces and other community assets.” In addition, it is noted that every community is unique in terms of its circumstances and capacities, so that local action may vary from place to place.
While there may be differences from community to community in the FAC network, it is also united by a common belief that there is a need for more of the right kinds of fire that support the regenerative capacity of ecosystems. As I’ve learned from members of these communities, “controlled fires” can be used to help build resilience into forests, feeding and encouraging new growth and diversity.
Indigenous fire stewards have long practiced cultural burns to support the long-term health of the forested landscape, enrich the soil, clear pathways for fauna, and promote biodiversity, all of which contribute to the health of their own communities. However, these cultural fire practices were criminalized through colonization and U.S. fire suppression policy, severing communities from their stewardship traditions. The result of the new management practices was a decline in the health of the forests and a rise in the vulnerability of those living in or near them. As one community leader put it, they are working to “reclaim prescribed fire and give fire back to people.” Today, cultural fire leaders and public agencies are collaborating to restore these Indigenous-led practices at scale – not as an emergency tactic, but as a path toward resilience and ecological justice.
This idea of giving fire back to people metaphorically resonates with the network-building and democratic engagement work we do at IISC. Much of our capacity building focuses on creating processes and structures that are more inclusive, specifically for those who have been historically marginalized, to support more just, healthy, and sustainable communities. And increasingly, we see the need for more distributed, diverse, flow-oriented approaches to social change as both the means and ends of our work. At IISC, we see “regenerative networks” the same way: when power is shared and flow increases, resilience grows.
Energy network sciences suggest that focusing on diversity, flow, and intricate structures in human networks can be a foundation for long-term and equitable prosperity. In many ways, this is about extending the lessons from fire-adapted communities regarding what it means to tend to the holistic health of the forested landscape – the importance of considering and conserving biodiversity, choosing strategic interventions and disturbances that encourage resilience and new growth, and empowering those who know local landscapes the best to act.
The “cool burns” of human networks might be thought of as “disruptions” in the form of learning, truth-telling, resource sharing, power building, and prototyping that allow new possibilities to spring up. The lessons from fire – distributed power, shared stewardship, and regenerative disturbance – may be exactly what our movements need now.
How are you tending the regenerative “fires” of learning, power sharing, and collective care in your networks? What might become possible if we did this together?
For more on “good fire,” listen to this podcast hosted by Amy Cardinal Christianson and Matthew Kristoff, watch this short video, or check out the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network website.
Image Description: A soft, blurry, dreamy illustration of three abstract purple flowers on thin green stems against a dark blue background. Small white dots float around them, resembling pollen or fireflies. By Eva Corbisier via Unsplash.
We are living through so many transitions in the nonprofit sector, as with elsewhere in the world. People are leaving long-held roles, teams are shrinking, and organizations are rethinking how they survive in a time when everything, from funding to trust, is shifting. The sector is being reshaped in real time.
And while the headlines often focus on who’s leaving or what’s being lost, I’m starting to believe that change doesn’t have to feel like loss. It can also be an act of love if we approach them with care.
Leaving Well Is a Form of Leadership
After nearly 13 years at IISC, I’m in my own big transition. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to leave in a way that feels honest, grounded, and caring – for myself and for the people I’ve worked alongside. And, my cheerleader self is on full display this fall.
When a key leader departs or several staff members move on, the focus often lands on logistics: files, budgets, and inboxes. But the deeper work is emotional and relational. My own “transitional hygiene,” as my colleagues call it, has been equal parts planning, presence, and cheerleading. I’m handing off pieces of my job to other current colleagues as we are not re-hiring for my role (budget constraints!). What keeps bubbling up is how caring and skilled my colleagues are. So it is cheerleading in the best sense – not some false “rah, rah, you can do this” but rather a deeply grounded sense that others can master the spreadsheets and the tasks and that, in fact, they will bring fresh eyes and ideas to the table. They will improve on my contributions and leadership.
That realization has been healing. Instead of feeling like I’m disappearing, I feel like I’m passing something on.
How to Make Transitions Healthier for Everyone
In the nonprofit world, we often treat leadership changes like crises to be managed instead of opportunities to grow collective capacity. But what if, without being Pollyanna-ish about it, transitions were seen as opportunities for renewal?
Whether it’s one person leaving or major shifts or an organizational closure, here are some practices I’ve leaned into:
Start with care, not checklists. Before diving into to-do lists, take a breath together. Acknowledge what’s changing and what’s hard about it. That small moment of grounding makes everything else easier.
Document, but don’t dump. When you hand things off, don’t just send a pile of folders. Share the story behind the work – why certain choices were made, what relationships need care, and what you’ve learned along the way. In fact, ask what files might no longer be needed and when it’s more important to offer a frame than a set of to-dos, which really need updating anyway.
Honor relationships and the work you have done. Tell people what you’ve valued about working with them. It sounds simple, but it builds connection and confidence when the ground feels shaky. In a meeting about one of our most significant clients over the last ten years, after tactical sharing about relationships and ideas, we waxed for 20 minutes about how meaningful the work was/is, how awesome it is to see change in the direction of racial equity in a large system/network, and how much we enjoy being together as a team.
Build continuity into culture. Cross-train regularly. Share leadership. Make sure that knowledge lives in the community, not in one person’s inbox.
Grieve. Leave time for where you and others feel grief and loss. In not skirting by this, you are building strength and connection into the system.
Celebrate and mean it. It turns out that when you take time and celebrate others, they want to do the same for you. Genuine appreciation creates confidence, which creates continuity. In my transition meetings, I say, with real belief, that I know they will elevate the work to another realm.
A Transition Toolkit for Nonprofits
Here are some things I’ve found useful in my own transition and in supporting others through theirs:
Transition Documentation: Outline key processes, relationships, and decision criteria. Use plain language like “what future me would want to know.” Reflection Template: Ask departing staff: “What have you learned? What unfinished questions remain? What advice would you give your successor?” Peer Learning Check-Ins: Pair departing and remaining team members to share context, insights, and gratitude. It’s not just about transferring work, but sharing wisdom. Onboarding Continuity: Build onboarding systems that emphasize culture, not just compliance. How do new staff learn who you are as an organization? Celebration Rituals: Closing circles, storytelling sessions, or shared meals mark endings with gratitude. They reinforce the community even through change.
The Real Legacy of Leadership
At its heart, leadership transition is an act of trust. Trust that others will hold the mission. Trust that the organization will evolve. Trust that letting go can be a form of contribution. When we treat transitions as part of the work rather than an interruption of it, we open the door to institutional renewal. And, we create room for new leadership in expected and unexpected places, in ways that many of us profess to do. It is true that Facilitative Leadership™ makes room for others to shine and lead. So here’s to every cheerleader holding the pom-poms of purpose right now. May we all leave and arrive with care, courage, and celebration.
How does your organization mark transitions? What would it take to make change a source of renewal instead of fear?
Author’s Note
From Miriam Messinger: In my experience, it is hard to end well: to feel good about oneself and one’s contributions, to shift work to others, and to know that you are leaving folks well set up. After nearly 13 years at IISC, I’ve learned that the heart of a healthy transition isn’t about perfection but about presence, celebration, and trust. This piece is both a love letter to my colleagues and an invitation to the broader field: let’s model the kind of endings that make new beginnings possible. I’m happy to be part of a great ending for me at IISC.
Ready to Lead Through Transition with Care?
Whether your organization is preparing for a leadership handoff, restructuring, or renewal, IISC can help you design processes that honor both people and purpose. We’ll help you build clarity, continuity, and culture in times of change so you can move forward with confidence and care.
Image Description: Illustration of a person with long black hair and closed eyes, wearing a colorful striped sweater. They appear calm as abstract lines and circles of various colors swirl behind them. By Yeti Iglesias via Unsplash.
Over the past 32 years, Interaction Institute for Social Change has supported thousands of leaders, hundreds of organizations, and dozens of networks to navigate challenges and build diverse collaborative power. We have done this in rural, suburban, and urban communities, in this country and around the world. Between the two of us, we have seen a lot, dealt with many different scenarios and situations, and worked with an incredible variety of people and groups. All that said, over the past several years, we have faced an increasingly “perfect storm” of forces that have deeply challenged us, and on some days have left us feeling overwhelmed. These are truly extraordinary times, and they call for extraordinary habits.
At a recent gathering of sustainable agriculture advocates and new economy thinkers, someone made the point that while we may not know what is coming next, this is a good time to develop these habits. In considering this some more, we started thinking about this time of “in-between” and “not yet” as an opportunity to develop stronger transitional hygiene: the small, sustaining practices that keep us healthy, grounded, and connected as the world shifts around us.
What seems clear is that regardless of what is coming our way, there is a set of practices that will benefit ourselves as well as others, foster stronger social connections, promote community well-being, and prepare us for the future.
Here are some of the habits that have helped us and the leaders we work with stay steady and open through uncertainty:
Curtis’s Seven Habits
Take care of ourselves: As they say on planes, put your own oxygen mask on first. It is difficult to be of service and support to others if we always think of others first and ourselves last.
Be kind and generous towards others: This is key to creating a sense of abundance and possibility. Without grace for others and ourselves, we can get caught in a spiral of doubt, anger, and grief.
Stay connected to what really nourishes us: Whether it is spending time with family, friends, a pet, walking in the woods, taking a bath, staying hydrated, or eating good food, staying grounded can keep our nervous systems from letting fear rule the day.
Get out of our bunkers/silos and engage with others, including across differences: Isolation can be a killer of our spirits, our creativity, and our hope. We will each have our own sense of what the right amount of connection is, and with whom/what.
Cultivate playfulness and curiosity: In times of seeming contraction, if we shrink too much, we can lose sight of the larger world. Sometimes it can be helpful to say to ourselves, “Step back. Step back again. What do I see now?” This can also be a good time to try new things, keeping in mind that through contractions, there can be birth.
Keep a healthy sense of humor and humility: Those who laugh, last. And they tend to have a better time, no matter the circumstances. Also, remember, we don’t know the full story. Our view is ALWAYS partial and limited, and influenced by our mood. So much remains hidden. What aren’t we seeing, including supports and new paths forward?
Commit to ongoing learning: This is how our species has survived this long and made it through some really rough patches. And it is especially helpful when we share what we are learning with and seek this out in others!
Kelly’s Seven Habits
Lean into your devotion: In times like these, don’t drown in the to-do list and tasks. Unlock your passion for your work and the people who are around you. Dedicate yourself to the bigger picture – what’s actually going to move us forward, you forward, and dive in with your fierce love and commitment. If it’s not moving you, find what is. A public health leader, Carlene Pavlos, shared that we must approach everything we do with “commitment to love and emotion.” Without it, we’ll be empty, used up, and isolated.
Tap in. Tap out: It’s tiring to breathe in the politics of this moment and work with fewer resources. Cross-train staff and create redundancies and shared leadership so that people can tap in and out of duties and leadership. Tapping in looks like taking on more leadership and projects when we have energy and time, so others can rest and renew. Tapping out looks like removing things from our plate, taking time off, and sabbaticals before burnout sets in.
Be ready to keep unraveling: It won’t be like this forever, and we can expect more challenges and shocks ahead. Accept change as the natural order of things, and normalize for yourself that each hour and day may feel different and require a different resource. When the culture and electoral shifts occur, be prepared to undo the damage and create anew, together.
Contribute to and support your culture: Move through anger and fear (or let them move through you/us) so we can be good to each other and generate good ideas.
Ask for help and ask again: Consider your friend, family, personal, and professional networks. Your relationships and resources are sturdier than you know. Expand your circles – new connections await!
Persist through contraction: Even if our organizations get smaller, we can still be mighty and effective by doing what we do best, and connecting to the rest.
Stop when you can’t move another step: Don’t force yourself past exhaustion or get caught spinning in fear. Stop moving your body and mind, listen to the silence, and see what messages, ideas, and decisions are trying to find you.
These habits are how we stay human in inhuman times – small, steady practices that keep collaboration alive when the world feels uncertain.
How about you? What good habits are you cultivating now, for the short and long-term? And what are you hearing from others? Please share your thoughts with us!
Image Description: Illustration of a person lying on their back in a field at night, gazing up at the stars. The sky glows with shades of blue and pink, and a shooting star arcs above. By Naila Conita via Unsplash.
In our July blog, we introduced five practices for organizations and networks seeking clarity in uncertain times. Over the next few months, we’ll explore each of those practices more deeply.
First up:Clarify Your North Star
The North Star has long served as a symbol of direction and survival. Enslaved people followed it as a guide toward freedom. The North Star imagery is both historical and gripping. In the late 1840s, Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany named their abolitionist newspaper The North Star with the slogan: “Right is of no Sex—Truth is of no Color—God is the Father of us all, and all we are Brethren.”[3][4]
This history reminds us that clarifying a North Star is not just about strategy; it is also about values. It is about orienting ourselves toward survival, justice, and our shared humanity. In today’s turbulent times, organizations are facing funding cuts, political attacks, burnout, and an increase in community needs. A North Star helps organizations maintain their purpose while navigating change. The image of the North Star is about setting direction and grounding us in a clear purpose, something we can’t do without.
With that historical weight and justice orientation, we want to write about this step in strategic direction setting with clarity and heft. It asks us to plan with the right balance of focus and creativity, and at the right altitude. Strategic direction requires us to stay focused like a laser to move our missions forward, while also building in the flexibility and shock absorbers needed to navigate bumpy terrain.
Why Clarifying Your North Star Matters
So what is the “right altitude” for our planning in turbulent times? We believe it begins by clarifying your North Star.
Ask: What is the core purpose that must remain constant, even as the world shifts? How can you stay emergent and responsive to crises while still focusing on building long-term power and transformation?
While clarifying your North Star might seem lofty in tough times, if we don’t know where we are heading, we are sure to get lost. The North Star is a belief and is directional; it serves several functions:
Reminds all staff, board members, partners, and network of what we are striving for.
Provides a compelling vision that keeps us going beyond the day-to-day of our work.
Establishes criteria that can help us determine what to pursue and what not to pursue, grounding us in a strong identity.
Anchor decisions, strategies, and culture in tough times
Helps folks decide whether this is the right organization or network for them
Without a North Star, organizations risk drifting with funder demands, political winds, or the crisis of the moment. With one, you can adapt without losing identity.
Making It Real
A North Star is only useful if it lives beyond a vision statement.
To bring it to life:
Bring the right people around the table: Those most impacted by your work must be part of naming and having a voice in the core vision and destination
Embed it in decisions: Practice using your North Star in daily decisions, big and small. This will help make informed decisions when conditions or funding change, allowing for a focus on key elements of a program.
Use Your North Star as Anchor/Compass: During times of stress or transition, let your North Star be a touchstone, helping you stay grounded in what is most important and purposeful even as conditions shift or a crisis emerges.
To begin, ask yourselves:
What do we want to keep aiming for, especially in the toughest of times?
How do we ensure that our purpose is reflected in our decisions, not just in words? Whose voices are missing in naming or refining our North Star?
Clarifying your North Star is the first step in setting strategic direction with clarity and purpose. It provides focus and steadiness while leaving room for flexibility and emergence. External forces will always shape our path, but a strong North Star ensures they don’t paralyze us. Instead, it grounds us in clarity and steadiness, positioning us for thoughtful, flexible, and equitable direction.
In our next blog series, we will explore how we can plan for multiple futures as a means to stay purposeful without being too rigid, keeping your North Star in view while preparing for the unknown.
Ready to Move from Chaos to Clarity?
If your team or organization is navigating complexity, burnout, or uncertainty and still dreaming of impact, justice, and transformation, we’d love to connect!
Reach out to explore how we can support your team through Strategic Direction Setting. We’ll help you align around what matters most, build courageous collaboration, and chart a course grounded in shared power, visionary leadership, and real-time responsiveness.
Image Description: Colorful abstract illustration of overlapping human silhouettes filled with varied textures and patterns, like stripes, scribbles, brushstrokes, and bold colors like orange, blue, pink, green, and black. By Getty Images via Unsplash.
Every movement for justice has faced backlash. The abolitionists felt it. So did the suffragists and the leaders of the Civil Rights era. Today, organizations advancing racial justice, equity, and DEI are navigating a new wave of political attacks, censorship, and intimidation. The stakes are rising fast.
In this Nonprofit Quarterly feature, IISC President Kelly Frances Bates and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Vice President Fiona Kanagasingam lay out a framework for how justice-rooted organizations can respond with courage, solidarity, and organized power. They explore the spectrum of responses emerging across the field, from compliance and silence to pragmatic adaptation and bold collective action.
As the authors write, “Courage is contagious. Seeing others wield it helps us build our own.” Their message is clear: while the work is under attack, it is not illegal, and this moment calls us to deepen our commitment, not pull back.
For organizations, funders, and networks alike, this article is both a reality check and a roadmap. It asks: Where do you fall on the spectrum? What risks can you take to protect equity work under threat? And how can we act in solidarity so that the most vulnerable are not left to carry the heaviest burdens alone?
“We will all be worse off and concede too much if we think we can ‘wait out the storm.’ Rather, we can organize within and across institutions to build power. We can work together, in small and big ways, to create courageous actions that can be replicated throughout our communities and our country.“
Image Description: Illustration of a human head silhouette filled with branching, colorful neural pathways in red, blue, pink, and yellow, resembling both a brain and tree roots. The background features abstract shapes in red, blue, yellow, and pink. By Yeti Iglesias via Unsplash.
What happens when communities, not corporations, shape the future of AI in schools? This case study illustrates how IISC facilitated a cross-sector collaboration to build a bold, equity-centered AI framework rooted in equity, ethics, and human engagement in education. The work centers on the belief that how we come together determines what becomes possible and that those closest to the problem hold critical wisdom for the solution.
The Big Picture
AI is transforming classrooms, influencing everything from instruction and assessments to mental health monitoring. But while AI holds promise, it also carries serious risks: amplifying bias, eroding privacy, and deepening educational inequities, especially for Black, Brown, and low-income students.
AI tools are appearing in schools quickly and often without anyone checking how they’re used. Companies are selling directly to teachers, skipping over school districts, parents, and community voices. That means decisions are being made behind the scenes, with little clarity or accountability. Without clear guardrails, AI risks doing more harm than good.
A Community-Led Response
In response to these urgent challenges, a collaboration of national organizations, led by the NAACP, National Black Child Development Institute, and the Schott Foundation for Public Education, and facilitated by the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC), co-designed a collaborative process to guide the ethical and equitable integration of AI in public education. This case study captures that effort and explores how community-led design and racial equity principles can inform the future of education technology.
This initiative emerged from the recognition that most school districts and communities lack the tools, knowledge, and infrastructure to meaningfully shape AI policy. The current landscape allows for ad hoc AI adoption without community input and accountability, risking harm and undermining trust. To protect students and promote equity, it is essential to center human engagement, community wisdom, and ethical guardrails in the development and deployment of AI technologies.
Dr. John H. Jackson, President and CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, emphasized,
“We wanted to ensure that there’s a democratic process by which parents, educators, and students are engaged in the integration of AI in their lives.”
IISC’s Role: Holding the Space for Transformative Collaboration
At IISC, facilitation is at the heart of our work – we teach it, practice it, and refine it every day. Our “special sauce” lies in designing meetings, experiences, and networks that are inclusive, equity-based processes that build a bigger we, rooted in the simple conviction that:
Together, we know much more than we know individually, and people closest to a problem have important wisdom about the solutions.
True buy-in is built through invitation and inclusion. Successful processes require not just engaging individuals, but intentionally designing the right level of involvement, ranging from consultation to co-creation to shared leadership.
In this project, IISC created a six-month journey grounded in those values. Our facilitation helped our partners:
Build a shared language around AI
Name and honor fears, tensions, and power dynamics
Surface both the threats and the possibilities of AI
Move from uncertainty and skepticism to strategy and collective action
As Dr. John H. Jackson, President and CEO of Schott, reflected: “It was a journey – moving from the threat space to imagining the opportunities.”
Many came to the table with different levels of tech literacy, policy experience, and emotional readiness. IISC’s role was to meet each of them where they were, not to force consensus, but to cultivate connection. Through careful design and deliberate facilitation, we helped shift the tone from caution to courage.
“Through intentional facilitation, this collaborative journey honored where people began, nurtured curiosity, and guided partners in shifting toward shared possibilities and collective action.” – Amy Casso, IISC Co-Facilitator on the project
“Schott Foundation and the other partners were brave and forward-thinking for hosting these conversations and community.” Kelly Frances Bates, IISC Co-Facilitator on the project
The Framework
Together with significant support from HR&A, the group created an AI Equity Framework designed to help educators, parents, and communities:
Ask the right questions when AI is introduced
Push for transparency, consent, and ethical use
Ensure decisions are made at the district and community level, not just by vendors
The framework is accessible and actionable. It includes decision trees, guiding questions, and language that empowers non-technical stakeholders to speak with clarity and confidence.
Why This Work Goes Beyond the Classroom
Beyond schools, the framework offers a model for philanthropy, tech accountability, and community-led governance. Dr. Jackson noted that many funders are either engaging tech companies without equity guardrails or sitting out entirely.
The implications reach far beyond pedagogy. As AI tools like chatbots shape youth relationships, decision-making, and mental health, the urgency to center human connection and community wisdom becomes undeniable.
Where the Movement Is Headed
With the framework now in distribution, partners are gearing up to support its implementation through technical assistance, storytelling campaigns, and sector-specific adaptations. The goal is to ensure educators, parents, and communities can meaningfully apply the framework, not just in schools, but in adjacent fields like healthcare and housing.
“It’s not just about learning outcomes. It’s about human development.” – Dr. John H. Jackson
Want Support Facilitating an Equity-Centered Process?
Whether you’re navigating a moment of change, bringing new voices to the table, or co-creating strategy, alignment, and coordination across lines of difference, how you gather matters. IISC designs processes and facilitates individuals, organizations, coalitions, communities, and networks through processes that are interactive, inclusive, participatory, and grounded in equity.
We can help you:
Bring people together across roles, power, and lived experience
Ensure collaborative and coordinated action amongst your partners
Align around shared values and direction
Navigate complexity and conflict with purpose
Build trust and collective ownership of the work ahead
Let’s talk about how we can support your process! Transformational systems start with transforming how we come together.
Make Meetings MatterJoin us on February 5 for a practical and energizing webinar that teaches simple facilitation practices to turn meetings into inclusive, focused conversations that lead to real progress!
