Resources
We are advisors to superheroes.
Learn more about our clients, projects, and insights. Discover tools, case studies, news, and information.
There is Always an “I” in Team
Once, I was leading a workshop on collaboration and the process by which teams, organizations, and communities can harness the power of their shared creativity. During the lunch break, one of the attendees came up to me and pointed at the slide I had left on the...
Your Leadership Team Doesn’t Need More Meetings. It Needs a Rhythm.
We’ve all been in that meeting. You know the one—where you glance at the clock and quietly wonder, Why are we here? Many leadership team meetings suffer from this. The agenda is packed with reports in the hope that important information is being shared. Yet decades of...
Taking Things Off the Table
One of the most common things we hear during strategic planning is: “We don’t want to just wallpaper new strategy over the old.” Organizations know the real challenge isn’t adding new priorities. It’s deciding what no longer belongs. In a sector built on commitment...
Strong Missions Need Strong Systems
Systems are at the core of social impact work. A food shelf’s intake system affects dignity. A clinic’s data system affects whole-person care. A nonprofit’s internal workflow affects whether staff can stay focused on the community or spend their day chasing...
Work Force Heroism Can’t Save You
The future of the social impact sector will not be built on the backs of exhausted people performing acts of daily heroism. For years, many social impact organizations survived because extraordinary people did extraordinary things. They worked late. Covered for vacant...
The Storm Never Ended
For a while, many of us believed we were living through a transitory storm. When the pandemic arrived, we adapted. We improvised. We worked harder than we thought possible. We told ourselves that if we could just get through this moment, things would settle down. But...
Real Change Starts with a Shared Mindset Shift
We’ve all seen the movie: One charismatic leader sees the light, changes their point of view, and transformation magically occurs. But in the social impact sector, one leader making a mindset shift is rarely enough. Our work is too interdependent, too relational, and...
Notes From the Field: Community Collaboration.
Collaboration is no longer a luxury. In today’s landscape, few organizations can be all things to all people. We’ve seen it across every sector: the most urgent community needs, from food security to cultural preservation, are too complex to be solved by any one...
Symptoms, Situations, and Systems
As social impact leaders, we are constantly navigating a complex landscape of challenges and opportunities during a unique period of prolonged disruption. We need a straightforward way to make sense of the moment. Here at Creation in Common, we use: Symptoms,...
Metabolizing Disruption
During this chaotic time, social impact leaders have a new task in front of them: metabolizing disruption. This is the work of discerning signal from noise, deepening relationships when funding is uncertain, and protecting people, resources, and values while the...
Mapping Your Passion
Passion is one of the most misunderstood forces in social impact work. We often treat it as fuel, something to burn through in service of urgency. Or as identity, “This is who I am, therefore I must keep going.” Or as motivation, “If I care enough, I’ll find the...
Expand Your Tolerance for Ambiguity
At the end of a long strategic planning retreat, there’s a moment our team at Creation in Common has come to recognize well. The room is tired—deeply, honestly tired—from a day spent in creative collaboration. People have stretched beyond their usual roles, listened...