The importance of shared leadership

Photo credit: NPS Northeast Regional Office

Our Focus

Structure, leadership, and a clear vision are key to the success of any non-profit organization. All players should have a voice, and leaders should provide motivation and guidance. During our nearly 30 years of service, we have seen every need, pitfall, and successful action of organizations like yours. Through our workshops and custom services, we have provided guidance to countless organizations across North America – giving them clarity and allowing them to serve their mission.

How We Can Help

Improving Effectiveness Through Planning

ICL’s model for planning and strategy will help you address many levels of your organization’s decisions. We will help you align your organization’s strategy with its desired impact and business model. Our goal is to help you to integrate your organization’s strategies across programs, communication, staff, board, and operational levels.

Nan-BuckardtListen to the following testimonial from Nan Buckardt of the Forest Preserves District of Lake County, IL, about how ICL supported their strategic planning process:

Expert Meeting Design and Facilitation

At ICL, we realize that meetings can have two outcomes. One, they can drag on and sap your energy. Or two, they can be thoughtfully crafted to support tangible outcomes and strengthen your group’s dynamics.

ICL’s staff and consultants can work with you to make the most of your next retreat, getaway, or meeting. Together, we will work with you to design and facilitate meetings of all sizes that get results. Big or small, meetings can become opportunities for creative thinking, cross-learning, building group trust, sharing input from a wider audience, and providing new focus for future work. By using highly participatory methods that begin well before the actual meeting starts, ICL facilitates meaningful and productive conversations with leaders and community members at all levels.

Whether you are planning a small retreat or convening a large important meeting with many key leaders in your community, don’t underestimate the importance of a great meeting design and facilitator. Let us help you design a creative, effective, and meaningful meeting that best utilizes everyone’s time.

Board Development Through Shared Leadership

ICL provides tools that help your board adapt and change to meet your current and future needs. We can help your staff and board leadership reflect on your needs and create a clear plan to move toward a board of directors that anchors your organization’s long-term effectiveness.

You can call on ICL to provide a variety of coaching, consulting, meeting facilitation, and training to address the needs of boards, including:

  • Creating shared governance between board and staff
  • Sorting out the roles and responsibilities between staff and board
  • Creating processes to recruit, cultivate, and retain board members and board leadership
  • Building a stronger board to support the organization’s fundraising
  • Assessing board members and the collective board effectiveness and performance

Finding Balance in Your Fundraising Strategies

In today’s quickly changing environment, we find that organizations of all sizes need to grow and evolve their fundraising strategies to meet not only organization needs but also external trends.

ICL’s team of fundraising specialists takes an integrated approach to organizational development and fundraising strategies, connecting the “why” of fundraising to the “how” of fundraising.

Because there is no one way to fundraise, we customize our approach to your needs and strategies. When we work with you, we help you to evaluate the following key areas:

  • Individual roles your team members need to play in fundraising;
  • Systems needed for cultivating relationships with donors
  • Membership and entry donor development
  • Special appeal strategies for program opportunities
  • Annual giving campaigns
  • Major donor solicitation programs
  • Endowment and capital campaigns

ICL will design a process to support the learning, planning, and implementation of fundraising strategies that can take your group to the next level. We work alongside you to assess, coach, train, and consult with you, your staff, and your board, giving you the tools and the confidence you need to be more successful in your unique approach to fundraising.

Building Your Bench

One of ICL’s hallmarks is our ability to support our partner organizations as they strive to build capacity from the inside. Building capacity starts with human capital, your organization’s most important asset.

ICL’s proven model to develop talent and leadership will allow you and your organization to reach new heights and serve your mission in new and exciting ways.

Preparing for Leadership Transitions

ICL has the tools and experience to assist your organization with developing a living, breathing transition plan that looks at your organization as a whole. Our process allows you to effectively create a document that grows with your organization and is ready when your organization experiences change, whether sudden or planned.


Contact Peter Lane at peter (at) icl (dot) org for more information on how we can help strengthen your organization.