TOP-DOWN PLANNING
A plan delivered to the team
The consultant gathers information, writes the answer, and presents it. Leaders are then asked to carry out decisions they had limited opportunity to shape.
PARTICIPATORY STRATEGIC PLANNING
The whole room builds the plan.
Strategic planning works better when the people responsible for carrying it out help create it. We facilitate a clear, participatory process that turns the room’s knowledge into shared direction and practical action.
WHAT IT IS
Planning people can own.
Participatory strategic planning brings the leadership team into the work of making sense, choosing priorities, and defining action. Liberating Structures such as 1-2-4-All, TRIZ, and Ecocycle Planning create useful ways for every voice to contribute without letting the conversation drift.
This is not a binder handed down by a consultant. The team builds the plan together, so the thinking and commitment remain in the room after the engagement ends.
PARTICIPATORY PLANNING
A plan built by the team
The consultant structures and facilitates the work. Leaders make meaning together, test choices, and leave with shared language and clear responsibility.
WAYS TO ENGAGE
Start where the team is.
Each engagement is scoped during a discovery call. There are no fixed packages or prices because the right shape depends on the decision, the people involved, and the planning horizon.
ENTRY
Alignment session
A focused working session that helps the leadership team name the challenge, surface different perspectives, and agree on what needs attention first.
ENGAGEMENT
Multi-month planning engagement
A facilitated planning process in which leaders build the direction, priorities, and near-term actions together rather than receiving a finished plan from outside.
CONTINUITY
Annual refresh
A recurring working rhythm to revisit the plan, learn from what happened, reset priorities, and keep the next 90 days clear.
WHAT YOU LEAVE WITH
A plan made for use.
The work ends in a small set of practical tools that keep priorities visible and make the next decisions easier.
DELIVERABLE 01
Shared plan-on-a-page
A concise view of the direction, priorities, and commitments the leadership team built together.
DELIVERABLE 02
90-day action map
A near-term map of actions, owners, and review points that turns the plan into an operating rhythm.
WHO IT FITS
For teams ready to think together.
This work fits churches, nonprofits, boards, and executive teams facing a meaningful choice, a new season, competing priorities, or a plan that needs broader ownership.
CREDENTIALS
Grounded facilitation experience
Five years of Liberating Structures training, with applied use in program development for a statewide nonprofit.
EXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVE
Strategy from inside the work
Experience serving as an executive staff member responsible for Strategy and Innovation.
PARTICIPANT WORDS
How participants described the experience.
- inspired
- well organized
- powerful
- revived my optimism for ministry
- alignment
- deeper understanding
- highly engaging