LIBRARY RESOURCES & BLOG
This area is filled with how-to articles, engaging conversations, and tons of examples of Catalytic Thinking in Action including actual planning sessions. Much to explore and learn from!

What’s Next for Creating the Future? December 2022 Integrity Conversation

Creating the Future’s Integrity Team (board) Meeting: Monday, December 12, 2022 10am-12pm Pacific time / 1pm-3pm Eastern time / 6pm-8pm UK time Topic: What’s Next for Creating the Future? Watch the meeting LIVE at this post. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page. Details about how to participate are below. What’s Next for … Read more

Review of Engagement Efforts to Date (Summary of Nov 14 meeting)

At our November 14th Integrity Team meeting, we began reflecting on the responses we’ve received so far from our engagement efforts. If you want to watch that meeting in full, you can do so here. We are deeply grateful to Jackie Bradley for documenting the questions and responses during this conversation. Some background before diving … Read more

Next Step: Facilitated Conversations to determine the future of Creating the Future

Creating the Future is asking our community to determine what’s next for our mission. And we’re using Catalytic Thinking to guide that effort. You can see our action plan here. So far, we have put into motion the first 5 out of the 9 steps in that plan. Those steps all centered around written responses … Read more

Our Community Responds: What’s Next for Creating the Future? (Questions 2 & 3)

In Part 1 of this post, we shared the responses we have received to Question 1 of our inquiry about the future of this organization. In this post, we are sharing the responses to Questions 2 and 3. (If you have not yet responded to our inquiry, we hope you will do so here. We … Read more

Our Community Responds: What’s Next for Creating the Future? (Question 1)

Members of Creating the Future’s community have been asked to help determine what’s next for the work of our mission. Yes, we are handing over the decision about the future of the organization to the community who will benefit from that work. And not surprisingly, we are using Catalytic Thinking to do so. In this … Read more

What’s Next for Creating the Future? November 2022 Integrity Conversation

Creating the Future’s Integrity Team (board) Meeting: Monday, November 14, 2022 10am-12pm Pacific time / 1pm-3pm Eastern time / 6pm-8pm UK time Topic: What’s Next for Creating the Future? Watch the meeting LIVE at this post. Just scroll to the very bottom of the page. Details about how to participate are below. What’s Next for … Read more

Making Time for Generative Conversation at Your Board Table

If you’ve watched Creating the Future’s strategy and board meetings, you know that virtually every minute is spent in  meaningful, generative conversation. Those discussions are what allow us to move forward in huge leaps, rather than tiny increments. What could be more important than thinking aloud together about the big questions your organization faces… Who … Read more

Community Engagement: Action Plan 2022

Creating the Future spent this summer applying Catalytic Thinking to a plan for engaging our community in the most important conversation we could have: Determining what’s next for this organization’s mission. You can see summaries of those conversations linked at this post. And you can see the final plan at this link. As part of … Read more

Creating the Future’s Community Engagement Plan 2022

 For the past few months, Creating the Future has been applying Catalytic Thinking to the topic of engagement – convening our community members to determine what’s next for this organization. All along this journey, we have shared the conversations that led to the action plan we’ll be kicking off in the next few weeks. You … Read more

A Grab Bag of Community Engagement Resources

Community engagement means different things to different people. The more we have been diving into our own community engagement efforts, the more we’ve focused on what it means to be “in community with the people whose lives are touched by our work.” Beyond a transactional tactic for getting people to help an organization (so often … Read more