Impact-Driven Leadership Insights

Explore articles and insights written specifically for Impact-Driven Leaders.

Setting and Achieving Goals

It’s that time of year again. We’ve said goodbye to summer and are wrapping our heads around fall and preparing for the year’s final quarter. This time of year lends itself to goal-setting, reflection, and preparation for that final sprint. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that many folks […]

September 15, 2023

“Your future self is more important than your current self.”

These words come from Dr Benjamin Hardy, an organizational psychologist and the world’s leading expert on the psychology of entrepreneurial leadership and exponential growth. But is this true? Even in the most toxic and dire circumstances? Here’s one board we worked with that was in rough shape… We posed the following statement in an anonymous […]

September 15, 2023

Connecting Cultures of Learning and Accountability

We took a short break from the newsletter last month to move, explore the wilderness, and have some summer fun. But we’ve been working (and learning), too. One of the things we have been thinking a lot about lately is this seeming tension between cultures of learning and cultures of accountability. Without the room to […]

August 18, 2023

“That was so healing.”

“That was so healing.” This was a sentiment from a nonprofit CEO we’ve been working with recently. She was sharing about her experience with us and the process we took her team through to update their strategic plan. The objectives of the process were really straightforward and tactical, like updating the outcome indicators and success […]

August 18, 2023

Shaping Your Organizational Culture

Culture is coming up a lot in our work these days. As Peter Drucker once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” And it’s true; we’ve seen it. In organizations where the culture is bad or even toxic, the ability to move forward with other work is, well, nearly impossible. But what is culture, really, and […]

June 9, 2023

Impact Viability Matrix

How many of you are doing programs or activities that you are not sure make sense? Or that aren’t worth the time and effort? Or that aren’t even producing positive, measurable change? If you raised your hand, you’re not alone. Almost all of us have worked at organizations where this is true. And the reason… […]

May 12, 2023

IMPACT INTO STORY ENERGIZER

This month’s story of impact is focused on part of our work with our THRIVER community about a 3-part workshop series we did called the “Impact into Story Energizer”. The reason why a nonprofit exists is not to just do nice things in the world. It is to CREATE POSITIVE CHANGE! Unfortunately, many times small, […]

May 12, 2023

Why capacity building needs to include Pause, Connection, and Belonging.

For this month’s Impact story, I wanted to share excerpts directly from a nonprofit leader’s share on our latest podcast – linked at the end of this newsletter. His name is Slade Custer and he’s the Director of Development (think head of fundraising) for Food to Power, a nonprofit in Colorado Springs, CO whose mission […]

April 14, 2023

What does your organization do?

Simple question? Ask five people in your organization and see what you get. Try asking the board, the community, and your clients. The answer is almost always not as simple as it seems. We’ve found that many nonprofits are struggling with one or more of the following questions: You may say, what’s the big deal […]

April 14, 2023

Re-energizing a Strategic Plan – 3 hour Operationalizing Workshop

NAMI Colorado Springs plays an important role in improving the mental health of residents in Colorado Springs, CO and they needed support to take their current strategic plan and “energize” it by co-creating measurable goals and action plans for the year ahead. Through our 3-hour Re-energize Your Strategic Plan workshop, the team generated success metrics […]

March 17, 2023

Outsmart The AI By Mastering the Art of Facilitation

If recent advances in AI have you worried about your job, we get it. ChatGPT may solve poorly written emails, but it can’t do everything. One thing robots will (probably) never do well is facilitation. According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum, employers are increasingly looking for people with problem-solving and critical-thinking […]

March 17, 2023

To Plan or Not to Plan…

Have you thrown planning out the window? If the answer is yes, you aren’t alone. A recent article by Forbes highlights that the constant change brought on by the pandemic has caused many of us to throw planning out the window. The idea is, hey, if all my plans were wrong, why should I keep planning? I’m […]

February 17, 2023

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