A civic strategy practice that builds. Based in Colorado Springs.

Common questions: how an organization develops its next generation of leaders, what positioning to take into a new phase, where mission and operations have come apart, how to engage city government or a public agency on an emerging issue. An engagement begins with one of those questions and a calendar — usually six to twelve weeks — and produces something written: a memo, a framework, a positioning paper an organization can act on. Retainers extend that into a longer cadence. The civic audit looks at an institution, network, or field and asks where civic life is strong, what capacities have atrophied, where the work sits in its broader context, and what comes next.

Strategy answers what to do. Programming and engagement design answer how. A program arc shapes a season or a year of an organization’s offerings — a member education series, a public lecture track, a fellowship cycle. An engagement process designs how a community is consulted on a decision that affects it — a budget priority, a land-use change, a strategic plan. Curriculum design extends the same craft to training programs and workshop series.

Convening and facilitation are how those services get delivered when the room matters. A hosted convening is a single occasion — a retreat, a dialogue, a town hall, a working session — held for the question that brought the room together, sometimes inside one organization and sometimes across many. Standing facilitation is recurring: a board, a working group, a coalition’s standing committee, a member gathering held on a regular cadence. When the engagement calls for it, the work includes programming from the Palmer Institute.