My approach to consulting focuses on serving as a partner and guide to you and your organization. This role can include supporting the identification of the vision and values that will guide your organizational culture and belonging work, facilitating the collaborative work of moving toward that shared vision, and navigating discomfort and disagreement in the process.
Via phone or Zoom conversation with one or more representatives of your organization, we can identify your specific goals and the services I can provide that might best fit your immediate and/or longer-term organizational needs and culture. Services could range in size and scope from a series of phone calls with an external advisor/partner, to workshop facilitation with your Board/Artists/Staff, to the creation of a strategic inclusion and belonging plan. To best support client efforts, I have sought the following training:
Certified coach, having completed a Leadership and Performance Coaching Certificate via ACT at Brown University School of Professional Studies (ICF accredited program)
Trained mediator, having completed forty-hours of mediation training in 2020 in accordance with M.G.L. ch.233 § 23C with MWI in Boston
Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Developmental Inventory
Areas of practice include but are not limited to:
Internal communication and collaboration
Meeting design and facilitation
Conflict exploration (including mediation), navigation and transformation
Organizational behavior
Organizational change
Leadership development and coaching (including Executive Directors, Music Directors, Board Chairs)
I apply my experience to facilitate any or all of the following based on client need:
Implementing a culture audit/building institutional readiness for fairness, inclusion and belonging work and beyond- what does belonging work mean to your organization? Does your organization have the essential pieces in place to begin and sustain meaningful inclusion work? How can your organization prepare the communications practices and growth mindset that is necessary for healthy inclusion and belonging work?
Beginning the conversation- facilitating early internal and external stakeholder discussions regarding key questions and concerns (Board, Artists and Staff, among others)
Advising the work of your equity/inclusion/belonging/fairness committee- supporting your committee/task force/workgroup as an external partner: co-planning meeting agendas that support a long-term path of work, suggesting shared learning resources, and facilitating meetings via Zoom if/as desired
Creating an organizational definition of inclusion, fairness and belonging- what are the elements that comprise your organization's view of inclusion, fairness and belonging? Why? Is the definition shared among internal stakeholders? What will be your organization's focus within this definition and how will the voices and experiences of marginalized individuals be centered? How might alignment around this definition be achieved?
Defining inclusion and belonging goals- how might successful fairness and belonging work at your organization look and feel?
Offering learning and development/training opportunities- building and presenting customized workshop experiences around essential topics such as implicit bias, power dynamics and conflict navigation-- all through the lens of the performing arts world
Creating a customized short or long-term inclusion, fairness and belonging strategic plan with associated action steps for your organization
Developing metrics that will allow you to measure and clearly communicate your organization's inclusion and belonging progress
Advising the creation of structures within your organization that will support plan implementation and sustainability
Including but not limited to: exploration of fairness and inclusion practices in fundraising, marketing, artistic planning and decision-making, education and community engagement programming and practice, ongoing professional development for internal stakeholders (including design of customized learning curricula), organizational policies and practices (including recruitment and hiring practices for musicians, staff and board)
Advising and facilitating long-term inclusion and belonging work and conversations as a third-party partner
To address inclusion, belonging and fairness and organizational culture in a sustainable way, a performing arts organization must plan for it as it does an artistic schedule or endowment campaign— with intentionality, dedicated human and financial resources, and cross-functional stakeholder involvement. In the words of adrienne marie brown, “what you pay attention to, grows.”
Whether you need short-term support or long-term guidance, a consultant by the hour, or a longer-term partnership by project, we can work together to customize an arrangement for your organization that is a fit for your needs and available resources.