illuminating our interconnectedness
Collaborative Changemakers envisions a world in which those holding different worldviews work together effectively to address the most pressing issues facing our culture and society.
Services
We support nonprofit leaders and organizations to develop their capacity to collaborate effectively. Our work focuses on developing leadership, enhancing emotional intelligence, improving communication skills, navigating diversity and managing/transforming conflict. We offer skill-building workshops and training.
workshops & Training
Our curricula and workshops greatly enhance participants’ capacity to work collaboratively within and across organizations and create pathways to transformative results.
Each workshop is led by an experienced, dynamic facilitator and draws on the most current theory and practice in organizational development, conflict management, diversity awareness and cross-cultural communication. We use a mix of teaching techniques to suit a variety of adult learning styles including experiential skill building exercises, assessments, and presentation of frameworks.
Workshop titles include:
- Keys to Effective Communication Across Difference
- Integrating Left and Right: The Whole Brain Approach to Organizational Effectiveness
- Five Core Capacities for Effective Change Leadership
- Managing Conflict on the Path to Collaboration
- Building Emotional Intelligence for Enhanced Collaborative Capacity
- Strategies for Harnessing Organizational Learning
- Expanding the Table: Communication Skills to Engage Unlikely Bedfellows
Workshops can be fit into existing professional development programs. The length of our workshops can be customized to half-day, full-day or multi-day training programs and can serve as part or all of the content for a retreat.
To learn more or schedule a workshop, please contact us.
Meeting Design and Facilitation
Collaborative Changemakers brings decades of experience to designing and facilitating participatory group processes that create meaningful dialogue, heighten learning and maximize the benefits of collaboration.
We work with organizations, foundations, and networks to design and facilitate:
- Staff and team retreats
- Inter-organizational convenings
- Grantee and stakeholder gatherings
- Training and workshops
- Focus groups to capture stakeholder perspectives
In partnership with you, we define the purpose and desired outcomes for your event, engage with key stakeholders to design the agenda, and apply our years of experience as group facilitators to deliver on your goals.
With our focus on building trust by naming differences, we enable all participants to bring the best of what they have to offer to a collaboration or partnership. Each meeting or retreat is completely customized and includes the creation of all pre-work, resources, handouts, materials and visuals. At the end of each engagement, we help you create a plan to directly apply insights and learnings from the event into your ongoing work.
Framework for
Collaborative Change
What does it take to collaborate effectively? We’ve spent decades engaged in answering this question. Our approach is informed by our in-depth theoretical knowledge and empirically-based research. Best of all, it avoids the traditional pitfalls of collaboration: spending too much energy trying to convert people to your way of thinking and agreeing to an unsatisfying compromise. Our Guiding Principle is:
Change the ways things are done, not the way people think.
When we invest our energies into shifting the way things are done — instead of trying to change hearts and minds — people can see the change process as aligning with who they are and what they believe. We create transformation instead of division and debate.
The Five Tenets
In alignment with the guiding principle, our framework consists of five integrated tenets of collaboration.
- Respect Relationships.
Relationships are the key to any change effort. Success depends on our ability to build trust with allies, with unlikely bedfellows, and even with seeming adversaries.
- Create a Resonant, Realistic, and Resilient Vision.
Our vision must resonate broadly while realistically address underlying issues. Resilience helps us weather the varying degrees of resistance that emerge in any change process. We must remind ourselves that the process of change is often slower, less linear, and more incremental than we want.
- Communicate within Another’s Current Worldview.
We let go of convincing others to see it our way. Instead, we listen to what really matters to them, then share our ideas using language that connects with, rather than threatens, their values and beliefs.
- Engage a Committed Group of Unlikely Bedfellows.
We recognize that wide scale change requires broad support. Bringing together unlikely bedfellows to authentically represent the widest range of stakeholders creates the most transformative and sustainable solutions.
- Cultivate a Culture of Learning.
Staying attuned to the larger social, political, cultural, and economic landscape allows us the opportunity to adapt and evolve for maximum relevance. With this approach, new leaders can be developed and solutions can be continually improved.
IMPACT
With over 40 years of cumulative experience, Collaborative Changemakers' partners have helped a diverse range of organizations and leaders achieve their goals. Read these case studies to get a sense of the positive impact we can make in your organization.
Case Study: Engaging Stakeholders Through Collaborative Leadership Training
Case Study: Skill-Building for Effective Change Leadership
