What informs our work
We use research and professional guidance to inform the questions we ask, the agreements we make, and the way we review the work. Your organization’s context shapes how we apply them.
We begin with a defined question or goal, agree on roles and expectations, and choose practices that fit. That may include document review, interviews, facilitated decisions, organizational coaching, implementation planning, or reflective practice.
We explain the reasoning behind the approach and invite you to question it.
We agree on useful signs of progress and return to the experience of the people involved. A method that works in one setting still needs thoughtful application in another.
Research-informed practice supports careful choices and learning. It does not establish guaranteed outcomes for an individual engagement.
Selected references
These sources inform the approach. Referencing a professional standard does not imply a credential or an endorsement from its publisher.
Coaching agreements and reflective practice
A professional framework for ethical practice, client agreements, listening, awareness, and client-owned action.
Confidentiality and responsibilities
Guidance for clear agreements about responsibilities, confidentiality and its limits, fees, and sponsor relationships.
Organizational and team coaching
A framework for working with a team as the client, attending to relationships and stakeholders, and turning shared learning into action.
Board and executive partnership
Practice guidance on shared leadership, communication, and the responsibilities of boards and staff.
Strategy, roles, and implementation
A practice framework connecting strategy with accountabilities, resources, working practices, and organizational capabilities.
Working conditions and sustainability
Guidance that gives working conditions, organizational action, and meaningful worker participation a central place.
What coaching research can tell us
A synthesis finding positive average effects while identifying limits in what we know about mechanisms, methods, and outcomes.
Current questions in organizational coaching
A current research commentary emphasizing context, careful design, evaluation, and continuing evidence gaps.
For questions about program costs and resources, we also draw on Nonprofit Finance Fund’s full cost framework, which considers the resources organizations need for both immediate work and longer-term sustainability.
Further reading
Explore 20 white papers, reports, guides, and articles on leadership, organizational change, inclusion, digital capacity, and sustainable work. Follow each link to the resource or its publisher’s download page.
McKinsey & Company · Article
An Australian nonprofit leadership study examining stress, recovery, workplace expectations, and the support organizations can provide to their people.
Read online; the publisher also offers a PDF.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Five leadership strategies for organizations tackling complex social problems, with attention to inclusive networks, shared responsibility, and the conditions that sustain people’s participation.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
A look at the pressures executives face and how coaching can help them examine decisions, build self-awareness, and translate learning into daily leadership.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Coaching beyond the individual leader, including relationships across teams and departments, organizational change, and choices about using internal or external coaching support.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
How everyday conversations shape culture, with attention to listening, asking questions, offering constructive challenge, and agreeing on actions people will follow through.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
An overview of 23 CCL frameworks for leadership, feedback, team effectiveness, equity, delegation, and evaluating learning. Useful for comparing ideas with your organization’s needs.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · Research report
Organizational barriers that limit women’s access to leadership, plus actions to expand development opportunities, meaningful assignments, visibility, and more equitable pathways through work.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Questions and actions for recognizing connected risks, coordinating across functions, and learning through crises that place overlapping demands on an organization and its people.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Ways to connect leadership development with everyday management, engagement, retention, alignment, and change readiness, drawing on CCL research and examples of organizational practice.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Ideas for leading through change by strengthening collaboration, adjusting organizational practices, and developing the shared learning that helps groups respond to new circumstances.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
A study of how senior leaders work across departmental, stakeholder, demographic, geographic, and authority boundaries, with implications for collaboration and shared organizational goals.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
A framework connecting strategy implementation with leadership capabilities, organizational culture, talent systems, and structures, with questions leaders can use to examine gaps in follow-through.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
Center for Creative Leadership · White paper
Guidance on balancing challenging assignments with support, coaching, and opportunities to reflect, including signs that a development experience is becoming overwhelming for participants.
Read CCL’s overview and access the PDF from the publisher.
NetHope · Toolkit
Guidance for assigning data responsibilities, developing policies, and planning implementation, with templates that can support more consistent everyday organizational decisions.
Read the NetHope overview and follow its Box download links.
NetHope · Guide
A practical guide to planning, running, and following up on online workshops, with attention to engagement, communication, and facilitation skills.
NetHope asks for contact details before providing the download link.
NetHope · Framework & learning library
A framework and learning library covering collaboration, problem-solving, digital responsibility, creativity, and technical literacy to help teams identify development needs.
Explore the framework and linked learning resources at NetHope.
NetHope · White paper
Examines regional influences on nonprofit digital transformation, with attention to leadership, culture, and the need to adapt organizational plans to context.
NetHope hosts this paper on Box. View NetHope’s source listing.
NetHope · White paper
Explores the distinction between technology-enabled and digital nonprofits, offering a starting point for conversations about operating models, mission delivery, and organizational change.
NetHope hosts this paper on Box. View NetHope’s source listing.
NetHope · White paper
A 2023 installment in NetHope’s white-paper series on nonprofit transformation, offering further reading for leaders considering organizational resilience and future ways of working.
NetHope hosts this paper on Box. View NetHope’s source listing.
NetHope · White paper
Lessons from ten IDEA journeys in NetHope’s member community, with relevance for leaders discussing innovation, implementation, assessment, and shared learning.
NetHope hosts this paper on Box. View NetHope’s source listing.
Work with Equilibria
Start with a complimentary conversation about your organization, your leadership, and the work you want to strengthen.
