I attended the Collective Impact Forum‘s Champions for Change workshop last month, and it got me thinking about how we structure collaborative social sector initiatives, especially here in Texas. Wait, buzzword alert. Surely you’ve heard this term, collective impact, right? Everyone’s throwing it around lately. John Kania and Mark Kramer with FSG wrote a landmark […]
What's a Backbone, Anyway? Read More »
We recently concluded a 9-month community planning process focusing on children’s mental health in Travis County in partnership with Austin Travis County Integral Care. It was quite a journey and truly a collective impact effort, and my hope is that it will serve as a case study for future community planning initiatives. Like the search
The Zen of Creating a Common Agenda Read More »
It’s been one year since Woollard Nichols & Associates officially launched, and we’ve been reflecting on the work that we’ve done over the last year. It was a great year – we supported almost twenty clients including coalitions and collaborations, membership associations, non-profit organizations, city departments and divisions of school districts. We facilitated community planning
Happy Birthday to Us… But the Gifts are For You! Read More »
A while back, I got an email informing me that we didn’t get a grant that I had convened a team of consultants to apply for. A dozen lines in response to an application that required well over 100 combined hours of unpaid work to submit – no question that it was a downer to
Reflections on a Grant Rejection Letter Read More »
My close friends all know that I love to organize games. Some of my favorite memories involve playing Mafia, Balderdash, Cranium, Celebrity and Apples to Apples with friends over the years. So, it’s probably not a huge surprise to them that I’m now incorporating games into my career. Games and other simulated exercises allow people
Tough Issue? Get to… Playing! Read More »
WNA supports our clients in achieving financial sustainability and stewardship through the creation of development plans and strategies. Whether you are just getting started or would like to refine your existing online giving strategy, here are some great tips authored by our talented intern and current University of Texas student, Alenis Leon. Online giving is
A Refresher Course in Online Giving Read More »
We love communications and PR folks. They are amazingly creative professionals who can offer value-added services to promote your mission by helping you craft your message to the media, by designing impactful collateral that supports strategic fundraising, by creating infographics that demonstrate complex concepts at a glance, and more. But – and I think my
We’re currently working with a collaboration of local entities on planning for substance abuse services, so when I saw this article last week, it piqued my interest. It’s not a long read, but if you’re pressed for time I’ll boil it down: People lie when asked about hard drug use. To get a real picture
Could the Loss of Obscure Federal Data Impact Your Ability to Get Funded? Read More »
Recently, a friend asked me to describe WNA’s business model. I told her that we are interested in focusing on collaborative work between more than one agency or organization. “You know,” I said, “the messy kind of work.” She laughed and let me know she would be sure to think of me when she had
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we wanted to share 7 reasons why we at Woollard Nichols & Associates are in love with our work! We work with inspiring leaders. The initiatives we work with are making Central Texans lives’ better. We get to support visionary projects. We get to give back. We see results. We
7 Reasons We Love this Work Read More »