Leadership
Dialogues
A Dialogue with Ian Shea
Meet Ian Shea, founder of Black Cat Contracting, and learn from his approach to organizational consulting.
Learning from Melissa Segal
Discover insights from Melissa Segal, LCSW and founder of InterHuman Solutions, on mission-driven work, communication, and creating meaningful change.
Learning from Laura O’Rourke: Grant Readiness and the Art of Sustainable Funding
This is the second in my dialogue series where I sit down with fellow professionals to explore their expertise and learn from their unique perspectives. Today’s conversation is with Laura O’Rourke of Laura O’Rourke Consulting, a fellow member of the Independent Philanthropy Advisor Referral Group (IPAR).
Learning from Seth Klukoff: Strategic Communications That Actually Work
Today’s conversation is with Seth Klukoff of Eoan Strategies, a fellow member of the Independent Philanthropy Advisor Referral Group (IPAR).
Leadership
What Frederick Douglass Understood About Freedom That We Keep Forgetting
Explore what Frederick Douglass understood about true freedom that modern society keeps forgetting—and why his insights matter more than ever today.
Accountability Over Accuracy — Spaciology Chronicles
A boardroom interruption shifts the room. David chooses repair over being right—and learns how accountability can widen trust.
Space As Home (Part 3): From Heroics To Habitat
The hero’s journey is a beautiful story. It is also a dangerous default. In its modern form, the hero narrative trains us to believe that transformation is a personal achievement accomplished through willpower, certainty, and conquest.
Space as Home (Part 2): Shared Space and the Ethics of Attention
If internal space is the room you live in alone, shared space is the room you co-create with others.
Space as Home (Part 1): Living Inside a Belief System
Beliefs are not only opinions floating in the mind. They are the invisible architecture that shapes what we notice, what we dismiss, what we fear, what we desire, and what we think is possible.
The Philosophy of Enough
Discover why mission-driven organizations achieve deeper impact by embracing ‘enough’ rather than chasing endless growth that dilutes mission focus.
Why Slowing Down Accelerates Mission Impact
Slowing down gives organizations space to reflect, align with their mission, and focus resources for real impact.
A Space-Based Approach to Leadership
Most leadership playbooks still carry old habits: control the plan, predict the future, move fast, and grow at all costs. That mindset can shrink our field of vision and crowd out people, wisdom, and the living world.
The Meaning of Freedom
This past weekend, I had occasion to visit Freedom, NH for their Old Home Week Celebration—an experience that changed my perspective on what it means to be human.
Rethinking Transformation: More Than a Hero’s Tale
For generations, the hero’s journey has shaped how we imagine change. Its arc—departure, ordeal, return—offers a compelling story of individual transformation.
Space as Praxis: Making Room for What Matters
Explore how internal, external, and shared space can foster clarity, connection, and transformation—space as a radical act of presence and care.
Finding Beauty in Business
Can business be beautiful? This file explores how meaningful human connection, vulnerability, and purpose can redefine our understanding of business beyond transactions.
Stepping Off the Train: Beyond Right and Wrong
In these divisive times, it feels somewhat comfortable to gravitate toward an existing train of thought. This train goes left, and this one right.
Why Care?
In a fractured world, why care? This file explores the existential and practical value of compassion, connection, and shared human experience.
Better Governance For Nonprofits
Explore how transformative leadership redefines nonprofit governance, fostering collaboration, innovation, and systemic change for greater impact.
Strategy
The Philosophy of Enough
Discover why mission-driven organizations achieve deeper impact by embracing ‘enough’ rather than chasing endless growth that dilutes mission focus.
Why Slowing Down Accelerates Mission Impact
Slowing down gives organizations space to reflect, align with their mission, and focus resources for real impact.
The Deeper Story in Mission-Driven Work
Marketing for mission-driven organizations operates in spaces far removed from traditional promotional strategies.
Integrated Marketing: Seeing the Big Picture
Marketing often feels like staring at individual stars in the night sky: each campaign, each channel, each tactic burning bright on its own.
Grant Writing as Sacred Space
Think of grant writing not as a transaction, but as creating sacred space—a place where your mission and a funder’s values can meet, connect, and grow together.
Building Trust in Mission-Driven Spaces
The most successful mission-driven organizations understand a fundamental truth: development is not about extracting resources from donors: it’s about creating the conditions for authentic relationships to flourish. When you shift from extraction to cultivation, you stop chasing transactions and start building trust.
A Space-Based Approach to Leadership
Most leadership playbooks still carry old habits: control the plan, predict the future, move fast, and grow at all costs. That mindset can shrink our field of vision and crowd out people, wisdom, and the living world.
Finding Beauty in Business
Can business be beautiful? This file explores how meaningful human connection, vulnerability, and purpose can redefine our understanding of business beyond transactions.
Stepping Off the Train: Beyond Right and Wrong
In these divisive times, it feels somewhat comfortable to gravitate toward an existing train of thought. This train goes left, and this one right.
Why Care?
In a fractured world, why care? This file explores the existential and practical value of compassion, connection, and shared human experience.
Marketing’s Role in Shaping Self-Perception
Marketing is deeply intertwined with our worldview because it shapes and reflects how we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part III)
To some extent, the hero’s journey reflects and perpetuates a colonizer mindset, leading to the subjugation of entire cultures.
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part II)
Technology, profit, productivity—these are hallmarks of what is often construed as progress within the Western worldview? Progress for whom?
Beyond the Hero’s Journey (Part I)
Floods, wildfires, drought, biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, pollution, mass riots, war—this is the world right now in active ecological crisis.
Space as Metaphor: Beyond Output-Oriented Paradigms (Part II)
Strategic plans are particularly excellent examples of a process with questionable results, especially if stakeholder collaboration is desired.
Transformation
What Frederick Douglass Understood About Freedom That We Keep Forgetting
Explore what Frederick Douglass understood about true freedom that modern society keeps forgetting—and why his insights matter more than ever today.
Accountability Over Accuracy — Spaciology Chronicles
A boardroom interruption shifts the room. David chooses repair over being right—and learns how accountability can widen trust.
Chasing Space, Finding Self
At the end of our lives, what will we think about? Will we remember those ‘important’ projects at work that diverted our attention from our children as they struggled to get our attention?
A Space-Based Approach to Leadership
Most leadership playbooks still carry old habits: control the plan, predict the future, move fast, and grow at all costs. That mindset can shrink our field of vision and crowd out people, wisdom, and the living world.
The Meaning of Freedom
This past weekend, I had occasion to visit Freedom, NH for their Old Home Week Celebration—an experience that changed my perspective on what it means to be human.
Rethinking Transformation: More Than a Hero’s Tale
For generations, the hero’s journey has shaped how we imagine change. Its arc—departure, ordeal, return—offers a compelling story of individual transformation.
The Radical Limits of Prescriptive Approaches
There is a certain comfort in a playbook. Step one, step two, step three: a promise of order in a world that feels increasingly chaotic.
Unstorying the Narratives of Space
What if space isn’t just where things happen—but how? Unstorying reveals how past stories shape us, and how space itself becomes transformation.
Space as Praxis: Making Room for What Matters
Explore how internal, external, and shared space can foster clarity, connection, and transformation—space as a radical act of presence and care.
Better Governance For Nonprofits
Explore how transformative leadership redefines nonprofit governance, fostering collaboration, innovation, and systemic change for greater impact.