Supporting the Collective Journey:
Our Work with Coalitions and Membership Organizations
By Carolyne Ash
Coming together as a collective or a collaborative group can make all the difference in addressing the most pressing needs of communities. Whether we're working with a professional network, a creative collective, or a community-based membership organization, the power of shared vision, purpose, and action can be transformative in addressing challenges and working toward collective change.
At Point b(e) Strategies, we have had the opportunity to work with collectives, collaborations, and membership organizations. These projects are unique because they amplify the already present challenges of inclusive participation, equitable decision-making, and transparency that organizations experience when entering into strategy, change management or JEDI-focus projects. These organizations are often navigating complex, multi-layered, and nuanced dynamics and needs that require intensive and inclusive community engagement and ongoing work to build broad buy-in and support.
In these projects, organizations balance centering their robust communities and stakeholder networks, which reflect a variety of diverse perspectives, lived experiences, social identities, and desired outcomes, with a need for tangible and actionable results and next steps. Additionally, collectives and membership organizations often seek greater clarity about who should be involved in decision-making as well as how and when decisions are made. Point b(e) Strategies supports this work by prioritizing deep listening, creating intentional opportunities to engage communities, ensuring flexible processes that make space for ongoing reflection, and crafting conversations that drive toward decisions, transparency, accountability, and shared ownership.
Supporting our clients in creating these intentional, thoughtful, equitable, and community-centered processes is our specialty. These processes are deeply informed by community voices, grounded in anti-oppressive and equitable methods, and guided by experiential learning techniques. In using these approaches, we create opportunities to name and address power dynamics and identify equitable and lasting decision-making strategies, galvanize and strengthen connections among participants and their broader community of stakeholders, find shared meaning, and drive toward collective solutions.
Here are some recent examples of how we've supported coalitions and membership organizations:
We engaged in deep community listening and strategic planning with a statewide collaborative to identify its unique value and role in pursuing transformational change.
We assisted an international membership organization made up of a politically and socially diverse community in clarifying its purpose and goals in pursuing racial equity, and developed meaningful action steps to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in its work.
We developed a meaningful plan for an environmental DEI-focused leadership organization to engage its sector and create ongoing opportunities for professional development, peer-to-peer support, and advocacy efforts within its organization and the broader community.
We worked with a collaborative of arts organizations made up of grassroots community-based organizations and pillar institutions to identify shared values and goals in pursuing a greater presence of the arts.
We supported the development of a community-based resource center to address surging and acute community needs and identify resources for a collective of grassroots and national organizations.
At Point b(e) Strategies, we genuinely understand the nuances of group dynamics. We don't offer one-size-fits-all solutions; instead, we take the time to understand each client's context and unique needs while crafting thoughtful and intentional support. We're passionate about helping coalitions, collectives, and organizations succeed, and we craft processes and provide the support to align vision with practice and mission with action.
