In this working retreat, we explored how to respond to complex situations with purpose, presence, and collaboration while preparing to share what we gained from the Wisdom Works Collaborative with our organizations.

Leading Well in Uncertainty
We deepened our understanding of how to lead effectively within today’s uncertain and fast-changing environment. Drawing on the principles of the autonomic nervous system, we explored how neuroception, interoception, self-regulation, and co-regulation influence our leadership presence and decision-making. Through reflective and embodied activities, we examined how our bodies and minds respond to uncertainty and practiced tools to remain centered and resourceful under pressure. We learned how awareness and intentional regulation can help us transform uncertainty into an opportunity for innovation and connection.

Organizational Resources & Resourcing Each Other
Building on our focus on personal regulation, we turned our attention to how our organizations resource themselves and one another. Using the Nexus framework, each nonprofit mapped their strengths and assets across six domains—Social, Educational, Cultural, Organizational, Economic, and Physical. This asset mapping process helped identify what supports our ability to thrive, where there are gaps, and how we might share or align resources with other nonprofits in the Collaborative. The exercise reminded us that our organizations are interconnected systems with abundant potential for collaboration and mutual support.

• Catholic Charities Resources
• Homeward Pikes Peak Resources
• Tri-Lakes Cares Resources

We then considered which assets we could lean into, improve, or share, and identified new resources we might need to bring our visions to fruition. Each team shared insights with the larger group, sparking discussion on common needs, overlapping resources, and opportunities for collaboration among the nonprofits.

Leading Change as a Team
We explored six principles for leading change that integrate wellbeing and systems thinking:

1. Lead Change from the Inside Out
2. Go Where There Is Momentum
3. Engage the Whole System—Mind, Heart, and Purpose
4. Design for Connection, Not Control
5. Learn Forward: Treat Change as a Living System
6. Seek Strange Bedfellows

Through these principles, we reflected on how to make change organic and participatory—anchored in purpose, fueled by connection, and supported by diverse partnerships. Explore the six principles, as well as the examples and practices we discussed in this summary document.

Peer Coaching: The Rule of 7
We practiced the Rule of 7 with our peer coaches to expand how we see challenges and possibilities. By reframing a leadership challenge through multiple new interpretations, we experienced how fresh perspectives can open creativity and energy.

Strategic Resilience & Future Planning
Each nonprofit reviewed their organizational Strategic Resilience document, reflecting the incredible work completed during the Wisdom Works Collaborative. We refined the plans to incorporate lessons from this retreat and identify next steps for organizational sustainability and thriving. These documents are provided to be a resource in the ongoing evolution of each nonprofit, building upon the thought-work already completed and the best-case vision of what’s possible.

We closed the retreat by reflecting on the overall Collaborative journey, sharing personal takeaways around the objectives themes of Me, We, and Work.

ON YOUR OWN:

1. Listen to this 4-part audio series on the physiology of stress and its impact on thriving. This is a great primer for the information we’ll be covering during the third working session. Click on the links below to listen to the audio:
   1. Neuroception
   2. Interoception
   3. Self-Regulation
   4. Co-Regulation

AS A TEAM:

1. Decide how you want to use the retreat “office hours”. We’ll be On Thursday, you’ll have dedicated time to make progress towards an objective of your choosing, such as a project or idea that was started during our work together, refining the Thriving Leadership Team Practices started during the previous retreat, or finalizing one of the stated objectives of this Collaborative (stated above).
2. Begin thinking about how you want to share out the work you’ve accomplished with the rest of your organization, Board of Directors, and/or funders. We’ll discuss this in detail during the third retreat.

During this retreat, we engaged in a comprehensive exploration of our organizational vision, leadership practices, and strategies for navigating complex challenges. We focused on solidifying our purpose, vision, and values, understanding various states of leadership consciousness, and identifying innovative funding models.

Welcome and Reconnection
We began by reconnecting with ourselves and each other, reminding ourselves of our shared ground rules, which included caring for our wellbeing, being aware of “ouch and oops” moments, showing up fully, and honoring confidentiality. We participated in a “Lead Three Breaths” practice to center ourselves and shared experiments we had tried to support our lives and leadership since our last meeting.

We also checked in on our peer coaching progress and reviewed the objectives and agenda for the two-day retreat, which included refining our purpose, vision, and values, exploring innovations in funding, understanding drivers of life and leadership, and developing leadership practices for impact.

Purpose, Vision, and Values
A significant portion of our time was dedicated to working on our purpose, vision, and values. We reflected on what the world is calling forward from our organizations, how this shapes or updates our purpose, vision, and values, and how we can use these foundational elements to strategically respond to challenging times. We discussed how these can serve as a strategic framework to act as a roadmap for long-term objectives, encourage innovation, allocate resources, inspire and engage our teams, attract talent, guide constructive feedback, and engage funders and board members.

Specifically:

• Catholic Charities recognized a need for their vision to be more physical and actionable than its current focus on “walking with people who are experiencing struggle and poverty,” seeing themselves as a “last hope” while approaching work with sensitivity around justice and relationship. They also identified that messaging around “extreme success stories” creates problematic incentives and miscommunicates the complexity of the work, feeding into harmful societal narratives.
• Homeward Pikes Peak reaffirmed its belief in the housing first model, which aims to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-reoccurring. They acknowledged that success metrics vary widely, from turning in paperwork on time to securing a living-wage job, and while all successes are celebrated internally, they aim to normalize sharing them externally as well.
• Tri-Lakes Cares decided to keep its mission statement, “Empowering families and individuals to reach towards a better tomorrow,” as it aligns with their shift to becoming a broader community resource center. They updated the vision statement to position TLC as “a community convening connector hub” that envisions “a connected, compassionate and thriving community where every person has access to resources, support and pathways to live healthy, fulfilling and empowered lives”. They also explored a unique approach to values, considering telling stories through 60-second videos of stakeholders explaining “This is why I value Tri-Lakes Cares,” rather than a traditional list of values.

Resourcing the Whole: The Drumming Experience
We engaged in an experiential drumming session led by Judith Piazza, a music therapist, to deepen our ability to sense and respond to what is emerging in today’s BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible) world. The objectives were to build our abilities in embodied systems awareness, presence and listening, shared creation and innovation, trusting the field, and gaining experiential insights. After the session, we discussed the insights gained and how to incorporate them into our purpose, vision, and values, reflecting on how these elements create a steady rhythm that guides our leadership through complexity and change.

Four States of Leadership Consciousness
We explored four states of consciousness that drive our lives and leadership: “To Me” (Victim Consciousness), “By Me” (Responsibility Consciousness), “Through Me” (Surrender Consciousness), and “As Me” (Oneness Consciousness). We learned that while 97% of people predominantly operate in “To Me” or “By Me” states, we naturally move through all states, and each has value depending on the context. Download the 4 States of Consciousness here.

Leadership Team Practices for Our Future
We revisited scenarios created in a previous retreat (worst/middle/best case) and focused on one that felt most relevant. For this scenario, we explored what a thriving leadership response would look, sound, and feel like, considering specific practices across several dimensions. Download the Worksheet here.

• Consciousness: We identified what consciousness would help us thrive rather than merely survive, and acknowledged the consciousness we are predominantly operating from today.
• Skills: We discussed current and needed skills that would help us thrive, such as our ability to exemplify, communicate, and use our purpose, vision, and values to guide the organization.
• Patterns of Behavior: We examined constructive patterns we already demonstrate and reactive or dysregulated patterns that might hinder us.
• Actions & Practices: We identified specific practices we could implement immediately to lead well in our chosen scenario. These included shoring up leadership teams, setting clear priorities, delegating, and communicating our vision, values, and purpose across the organization.
• Commitments: We identified 3-5 individual and collective commitments to support a thriving culture in our teams, including when and how these would be implemented.

Innovations in Funding
We shared and discussed various innovative funding models, recognizing the evolving landscape of economic shifts, policy changes, and social justice challenges. Each team shared examples, and Wisdom Works provided research-backed models.

Use the links below to download an overview of the Wisdom Works research in written, audio, or video format.

• Brent Brown’s recent interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro nails the importance of people-centered leadership—and the bravery we need more of in our workplaces today
• Since you’re working on positive changes in your lives and organizations, you may find our Key Habits of Thriving Leaders helping in understanding how habits are created and examples from others on a similar path.
• 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp
• The work of Peter Kostenbaum, who Renee mentioned as an example of someone who naturally influenced others into a higher state of consciousness.

ON YOUR OWN:

1. Use the Leadership Development Plan to turn your Be Well Lead Well Pulse® results into actions you want to take in support of your thriving.
2. Meet with your Peer Coach at least once prior to the second retreat on September 4-5. Use this Peer Coaching Guide to gain the most from your experience. Access the Contact List here.
   1. Renai Albaugh + Deana Hunt
   2. Corey Almond + Bill Lyons
   3. Andy Barton + Haley Chapin
   4. Tim Chase + Heather Ryan-Figueroa
   5. Beth Rolstad + Brea Reimer Baum
   6. Carolena Steen + Molly Stephens

AS A TEAM:

1. Discuss the following questions with your leadership team:
   1. What do the three scenarios we defined mean for our leadership team?
   2. What is the world calling forward from our organization?
   3. How does this shape or update our purpose, vision, and values?
   4. How can we use our purpose, vision, and values to strategically respond to this challenging time?
2. Explore various operational and nonprofit funding models.As a team, identify funding models that enable nonprofits to thrive or adapt to the current environment. Bring at least one example to the September retreat.

Understanding Our Operating Environment
The retreat began by creating a shared understanding of the complex environment we’re all navigating. Through an interactive web-building exercise, participants mapped the interconnected challenges facing their organizations—from employee burnout and federal funding cuts to climate change impacts and demographic shifts. This visual representation revealed how internal and external pressures create a web of influence that extends far beyond any single individual or organization.

We explored the concept of BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible)—a framework that captures today’s turbulent reality. This led to examining how leaders can shift from reactive contraction to expansive wellbeing, even within chaotic circumstances. Through guided breathing and embodiment practices, participants experienced firsthand the difference between operating from stress versus operating from a resourced state.

Scenario Planning for Strategic Resilience
Each nonprofit team developed three distinct scenarios—best case, most probable, and worst case—considering impacts across four dimensions: individual (leaders, staff, volunteers), operational (services, resources, infrastructure), community (populations served), and systemic (partners, government, other nonprofits).

The scenario development process emphasized thinking systemically rather than linearly, embracing uncertainty rather than seeking the “right” answer, and creating actionable frameworks for adaptation. Teams will receive refined versions of their scenarios in the coming days, along with guidance for using them as strategic tools.

Thriving as Leadership Capacity
Participants received individual results from the Be Well Lead Well Pulse® assessment, a research-based tool measuring 19 dimensions of wellbeing across six core areas: Fuel, Flow, Wonder, Wisdom, Thriving, and Thriving Amplified. The group’s collective dashboard revealed both strengths to leverage and growth opportunities to address.

Key insights emerged about the relationship between leader wellbeing and organizational effectiveness. Wisdom Works research demonstrates that 34% of a leader’s reported impact can be explained by their personal wellbeing—their experience of being internally well-resourced for their demands. This isn’t about self-care as luxury, but about wellbeing as a foundational leadership capacity.

Through partner coaching conversations and group reflection, leaders explored how their assessment results show up in daily leadership practice and identified specific areas for development. The concept of “resourcing and evolving” became a central theme—the ongoing work of cultivating internal resources while continuously growing to meet new challenges.

Purpose, Vision, and Values Realignment
The second day focused on reconnecting with organizational purpose, vision, and values through both individual reflection and team dialogue. Leaders examined questions such as: Why did you originally join this organization? When have you felt most aligned with its purpose? How might your organization’s core identity serve you across different scenarios?

Each team shared their purpose, vision, and values with the full group, receiving appreciative feedback and engaging in meaningful dialogue about what feels alive versus what feels outdated. This process revealed both the enduring power of well-articulated organizational identity and the need for periodic realignment as external conditions shift.

The Power of Support and Connection
Throughout both days, experiential activities reinforced the theme that leadership doesn’t have to be a solo endeavor. From tree pose practices that demonstrated the stability found in mutual support to arm movement exercises showing how engagement with support yields better results with less effort, participants experienced embodied learning about the value of connection and collaboration.

A particularly meaningful aspect was the opportunity for leaders to learn alongside peers from other nonprofit organizations. Participants expressed deep gratitude for the chance to share strategies and innovations across organizational lines, discovering they are not alone in grappling with complex challenges while gaining fresh perspectives from organizations with different approaches and cultures.

Peer coaching partnerships were established, creating ongoing support relationships beyond the retreat. The group reflections created space for authentic sharing and mutual witnessing—rare gifts in the typical pace of nonprofit leadership.

• Complete your personal thriving leadership assessment, Be Well Lead Well Pulse®.
• Provide a strategic overview of your nonprofit to Wisdom Works.
• Discuss the following questions with your leadership team:
  • What shifts on the horizon might open opportunities or spark disruptions that could redefine the future of your work?
  • What changes at the national or local level are likely to most significantly affect the populations you serve, positively or negatively?
  • How well-resourced is your leadership team—in its capacity to thrive, its skills, and its bandwidth—to navigate significant external or internal changes?
  • Which of your funding sources and programs are most vulnerable or best positioned to benefit anticipated changes—and how ready are you to diversity funding or picot services if needed?
  • If demand for your services were to increase dramatically, what would that look like—and how would your organization respond?
  • What scenarios, both energizing and unsettling, keep you up at night when you think about the next 2-3 years for your organization?