Your Mission Is Too Important for Organizational Chaos
Governance consulting for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations—rooted in 20 years of regenerative systems work and 9 years of working inside a sociocracy-based organization.
You started this work because you believe in something. A mission worth fighting for. Land worth protecting. Communities worth building. But somewhere along the way, the organization itself became the obstacle. Meetings that go nowhere. Decisions that never stick. A board that means well but can’t align. A team running on fumes.
You don’t need another strategic plan that collects dust. You need governance systems that actually work—and someone who’s lived inside them, not just studied them.
Does this sound like your organization?
Meetings that drain everyone but decide nothing
Your team spends more time in meetings than doing the work. Agendas run long. Discussions loop. People leave frustrated, unclear on what was actually decided—or whether anyone has the authority to act on it.
A founder or executive director carrying too much
One person holds the institutional knowledge, the relationships, the vision, and the daily operations. Everyone knows this isn’t sustainable, but there’s no clear path to distribute leadership without things falling apart.
A board that means well but can’t find its role
Your board members care deeply about the mission. But meetings feel performative. Strategic oversight drifts into micromanagement—or disengagement. No one’s quite sure where the board ends and staff begins.
Growing pains that your current structure can’t handle
What worked when you were five people doesn’t work at twenty-five. New programs, new staff, new partnerships—but the same informal decision-making that served you early on is now creating confusion and bottlenecks.
These aren’t signs of failure. They’re signs that your organization has outgrown its current systems. The good news: there are governance approaches designed for exactly this—and they work.
Governance that Grows Like a Living System
Most governance consulting starts with org charts and policy manuals. We start somewhere different: with the understanding that organizations are living systems—and the best governance mimics how healthy ecosystems actually function.
In a thriving forest, there’s no board of directors. Instead, there are clear roles, reciprocal relationships, feedback loops, and distributed decision-making—every element both gives and receives. When we bring this lens to organizational governance, something shifts. You stop trying to control the system from the top down, and start designing for shared stewardship.
Our primary framework is sociocracy—a governance system built on consent-based decision-making, distributed authority through circles, and continuous feedback. But we don’t just teach it from a book. We’ve lived inside a sociocracy-based organization for almost 10 years—navigating real conflicts, real decisions, and real growing pains. That lived experience is what makes our implementation support practical, not theoretical.
What makes this different
Integration, not isolation
We don’t just fix governance in a vacuum. We understand how organizational systems connect to the land, the community, and the mission—because we work across all of them.
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Embodied expertise
We’ve lived sociocracy, not just studied it. Almost ten years of daily consent-based decision-making, circle governance, and navigating the real human challenges that come with shared leadership.
Ecological thinking
Twenty years of permaculture design gives us a pattern language for how healthy systems work. We see your organization the way we’d read a landscape—looking for leverage points, feedback loops, and places where a small intervention creates cascading positive change.
Practitioner presence
We bring nature connection practices into our consulting work—not as a gimmick, but because we’ve seen how reconnecting teams to place and presence transforms organizational culture in ways that policy alone cannot.
Time is now
for transformations!
Three Ways to Start
Every organization is different, and we design our engagement to meet you where you are. Here are three entry points, from a focused introduction to comprehensive transformation.
Governance Workshop or Board Training
A focused, low-risk introduction to regenerative governance
Ideal for organizations that want to explore new governance approaches before committing to a full engagement. This half-day or full-day session introduces your board or leadership team to consent-based decision-making, role clarity, and the principles of shared governance. Includes:
- Customized workshop facilitation for your board or leadership team
- Introduction to sociocracy and consent-based decision-making
- Interactive exercises your team can use immediately
- Written summary of recommendations and next steps
Governance Implementation
A comprehensive engagement to redesign how your organization makes decisions and distributes leadership
This is our core consulting engagement, typically spanning 3–6 months. We work alongside your team to assess current organizational health, design governance structures that fit your culture and mission, and support the transition through hands-on facilitation and coaching. Includes:
- Organizational observation and assessment (interviews, document review)
- Governance redesign: circle structure, roles, decision-making processes
- Facilitated transition sessions with staff and board
- Sociocracy implementation with consent-based decision-making training
- Conflict navigation and change management support
- Initial governance manual customized to your organization
Ongoing Partnership & Integrated Support
For organizations ready for deep, sustained transformation across governance, strategy, and culture
Some organizations need more than a project—they need a trusted partner who understands both their governance challenges and their mission at a systems level. This retainer-based engagement provides ongoing strategic support, facilitation, and coaching as your organization grows and evolves. May include:
- Monthly facilitation of board or leadership circle meetings
- Quarterly strategic planning sessions
- Ongoing coaching for executive leadership
- Conflict resolution and mediation as needed
- Integration of ecological design with organizational systems (for land-based organizations)
- Nature connection programs for staff and leadership development
- Annual organizational health review and governance tune-up
Not Just Certified. Tested.
There’s a difference between learning governance from a workshop and living it every day. Our approach to organizational consulting comes from a rare combination of deep practice, not just professional credentials:
The Integration We Need
Most organizational consultants know nothing about ecological systems. Most permaculture designers know little about organizational development. I work at the intersection—because for land-based and mission-driven organizations. That's where critical leverage points are.
7+ Years Living Sociocracy
Not just trained—working inside a sociocracy-based organization for more than 7 years, navigating real decisions, real conflicts, and real governance challenges daily. This is embodied knowledge, not textbook theory.
20+ Years in Regenerative Systems
Two decades of permaculture design and education gives us a systems lens that most organizational consultants don’t have. Plus even more years founding organizations of all sizes. I see patterns, feedback loops, and leverage points—in landscapes and in organizations.
10+ Years with Permaculture Design Magazine
A decade of thought leadership, publishing, and community building in the regenerative movement. I understand mission-driven organizations and movements from the inside.
Facilitation & Teaching Expertise
Hundreds of workshops facilitated, courses taught, and groups guided through difficult conversations. I'm comfortable with tension, silence, and the kind of honest dialogue that transforms teams.
Faq
Absolutely. In fact, smaller organizations often benefit the most, because governance changes can be implemented faster and with less institutional resistance. Many of the patterns I address—founder syndrome, unclear decision-making, board-staff confusion—are especially acute in organizations with fewer than 25 people.
Sociocracy, also called dynamic governance, is a governance system based on consent-based decision-making, distributed authority through circles, and continuous feedback loops. It’s inspired by how living systems organize themselves. That said, I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all. I adapt sociocratic principles to fit your organization’s culture, size, and needs. Some clients adopt it fully; others integrate specific elements into their existing governance.
Most organizational consultants focus on efficiency: faster decisions, clearer authority, better processes. Those are valuable, but they’re incomplete. I bring a regenerative lens—I design governance systems that build organizational health over time, distribute care and leadership, and connect your internal culture to your external mission. For land-based and environmental organizations, I also integrate ecological design with organizational development—something no traditional consulting firm offers.
The World Deserves to Thrive When Your Mission is Successful
You didn’t start your work to manage dysfunction. You started it to make a difference. Let’s build the organizational systems that make your mission possible.
A consultation is a conversation, not a commitment. I’ll listen to what’s happening, share what I see, and explore whether we’re a good fit—no pressure.
