Services - New Directions Collaborative

We collaborate with social change organizations to design meetings that get the best thinking of a group and enhance people’s skills to collaborate to address complex challenges. Our current services are described below. We also have a new initiative called Kinship: A Hub for Amplifying the Power of Community, which includes a podcast and gatherings for community builders and social change leaders to bring their work to the next level. On that site, you can find these Upcoming Events and Coaching services.

Participatory Meeting Design

We help you design gatherings that are highly-interactive, inspiring, and enable deeper levels of interconnection, synergy, and learning than traditional meeting formats. We specialize in creating inclusive spaces for voices not traditionally at the table and navigating differences and conflict in ways that create transformative solutions. You can book a coaching session on meeting design here or contact us for a conversation about how we can support you.

Training Workshops to Build Collaborative Leadership Capacity

We offer workshops to enhance teams’ and organizations’ capacity to work together on complex challenges as they strengthen their trust, resilience, and effectiveness.

You’ll learn the mindsets, skills, and practices to enable diverse people to learn and collaborate, find your way in complexity and navigate power dynamics, and do great things together you couldn’t do alone. Here are four workshops we offer:

Working in Collaborative Ways – Learn how to create the conditions that enable people and groups to do their best thinking and experience the benefits of effective collaboration. Explore how to practice “collective sensemaking,” which allows us to see more of the system and it’s dynamics.
Meetings that Do More – Gain practical tools for how to create meetings that deliver multiple benefits, while ensuring all voices are heard and the best combined thinking of the group emerges. You’ll learn and experience several participatory processes that you can use right away.
Working as an Ecosystem – Learn how to break down silos, work across departments or organizations, and take a systems approach. We share practical tools to help people “see the system,” understand the history, and growing the trust and coherence of the group to work on shared goals.
Collaborative Learning: Thinking about our Thinking for Better Outcomes – Working in collaboration allows us to learn together; however, we need the personal skills to have conversations with people coming from different perspectives in ways that navigate tensions and differences productively. You’ll learn practical tools for becoming aware of our thinking, and engaging others about their thinking, and practice skills in reflective conversations, including inquiry and advocacy.

Each workshop is 2-3 hours and they can be offered as a series or in combination for a full day workshop.

LEADERSHIP COACHING

We serve as thinking partner/coaches to help leaders stay true to their values and put them into practice as they navigate complex ever-changing situations. Moving from intention to action with diversity, equity, and inclusion and working in participatory ways is complex and it can be quite helpful to have someone outside the organization to check in with. We help you work in ways that are participatory and build processes that are transparent, accountable and equitable, and find wise ways to handle challenges that arise. We bring understanding of how power and privilege accrue in systems, strategies for successfully engaging across difference, and effective interpersonal communication methods. Where appropriate, we bring in colleagues with lived experience and other expertise.

Testimonials

Beth brings a deep understanding of collaborative process and networks that has consistently helped us clarify our role as an evolving network. She has helped us to design and facilitate meetings for small (25 people) and larger groups (200) that are engaging, inclusive, and intentional. Our network partners report that they bring the facilitation ideas and techniques from those meetings back to their own work and communities.
– Erin Hardie Hale, PhD, Research and Network Coordinator, NH Food Alliance
Beth facilitated a thought-provoking training with about 30 professional staff about strategic questioning as a tool to strengthen connections and understanding of others and ourselves. Years later, we are still using the concepts she taught us as part of our daily work as educators and supervisors. Blending experiential activities with well-grounded theory, her workshops spur engagement, incite curiosity, and offer new insights.
– Ruth Abelmann, Director of Residential Life, University of New Hampshire
The participatory leadership skills that Beth teaches have been extremely valuable to me, both personally and professionally. I’ve been able to apply the tools I’ve learned in my work with stakeholders and collaborators. A key “aha” moment was appreciating that if I truly want systems change and buy-in from others, I need to let go in order for others to step up and lead.
– Chris Meehan, MBA, Chief Community Impact Officer, Vermont Foodbank
As a policy organization that is so focused on results, you keep us thinking about how to broaden our reach and strengthen the network for the long game. I really value your guidance on designing effective agendas for meetings that bring together multiple interests. I appreciate the reminders that there is a process for making people feel good and included, even if you don’t agree with them.
– Josh Craft, Energy & Climate Program Director, Environmental League of MA
Beth is a truly remarkable, one-of-a-kind facilitator, systems-thinker and participatory leadership coach. She facilitated an inclusive process to bring people from 30 organizations, with divergent views, to align around strategies on how to move forward together. This helped us to drive systems change in one of our core issue areas. I can’t recommend her highly enough.
– Matt Prindiville, Executive Director, UPSTREAM
In my work to help schools understand and reduce their food waste, I have to bring many different stakeholders together. I’ve already used tools that I learned in Working in Collaborative Ways with a group of middle school students and at a regional environmental conference. The middle school teacher was amazed at how every student found a voice. At the conference, I was able to really engage with the conference attendees rather than just presenting to them.
– Diane Calvin, Founder and ED, foodSCAPE
Your facilitation techniques helped us bring together grassroots leaders who don’t usually meet to share viewpoints and get to deeper project discussions than we often see. The meaningful relationships started there have continued beyond the event. To make progress on complex issues of equity and justice, we need the kind of training you offer to help emerging leaders convene inclusive meetings where all voices are heard.
– Julia Dundorf, Executive Director, New England Grassroots Environment Fund