Organizations face changes, blocks, impasses, & opportunities that are best discovered through facilitation.
As a longtime, trained facilitator, I have many tools to call on to help your organization creatively explore and face change, stagnancy, or unexpected opportunity.
When a group comes to me about facilitation, we start by discussing where they are now and where they’d like to be. What challenges do they want to address? Are they seeking great clarity of work or mission? Are they faced with hard decisions about workforce or changing programming?
Based on this conversation, I devise a plan for meetings and workshops that can include:
Reflection through writing and conversation
Listening practices that ensure all voices are included
Modeling with 3D materials or drawing
Embodied practices that get people on their feet
Humor and hyperbole, which can make the invisible easier to see.
EXAMPLES
Challenge: During its 20-year anniversary, the founders of a nonprofit wanted to collect memories from as many participants as possible. In a room with a lot of big personalities, how could everyone’s voice be included? And with more than 50 people, would chaos ensue?
Delivery: I led a half-day session that provided a clear container in the form of a fishbowl circle for people to enter the story-making center. The narrator kept shifting, as people added their memories. Not only were people engaged for three hours—no small feat—but a trove of stories surfaced that can be used in the organization’s various future materials.
Challenge: A group of university staff, faculty, and students working in different research areas and projects but all related to the Midwest wanted to figure out possible ways to work together
Delivery: I led four 2-hour sessions that helped the groups articulate their individual projects, identify gaps, and connect at mutually beneficial points.
Challenge: A state-level agency offered a grant to communities seeking to use the arts in their economic development strategies. Most of the recipients had little experience with the arts or in collaborating with artists.
Delivery: I led a daylong session to kickoff the communities’ work together, helping them identify possible themes, strengths, and challenges to the work they were commencing.
