Work With Me

Your teams are stretched and folks are burning out. The people you serve are changing but they still depend on you for support, and your funding and resources don’t always align with the work needed to meet them where they’re at.

The ways of working that built your culture aren't holding up under new strains that continue to emerge and you don't have time to figure out why.

Let me help you rebuild what matters most: the human capacity at the core of your mission.

The Approach

My approach is grounded in more than a decade of experience across the private, public, and non-profit sectors, and in academic research on creativity and resilience. I bring an outside perspective that sees your organization for its strengths, respects its institutional knowledge, and translates that power through a lens of human-centred design and venture-building experience.

Every engagement is customized — meeting your team where they're at, responding to immediate challenges, and building the creative tools, sustained trust, and shared ways of working that stick long after our sessions end.

How we can
work together

Team Culture and Resilience

Team retreats and one-off workshops rarely stick. Without an ongoing structure for rebuilding trust, co-designing culture, and developing new ways of working, even motivated teams slide back under pressure — especially in non-profit organizations where staff are managing burnout, hybrid work, generational change, and constant uncertainty with limited time and resources.

Team Culture and Resilience sessions offer non-profit leaders a creative, structured path to lasting culture change — moving beyond the away day to build the shared commitments, resilience, and belonging that sustain high-performing teams through whatever comes next.

What this could look like:

  • Try it out: Let’s test the waters and see if it’s a good fit with a 90-minute or half-day session. These focused sessions provide a starting point for you and your team to experience the approach and allow me to surface where your team most needs support.

  • Creative Reset Retreat: Do the deeper work with a 2-day immersive experience that surfaces tensions, builds trust, and gives your team the time and space to co-design a shared language and direction. Informed by the specifics gleaned from our Culture, Creativity, and Context sensemaking tool, you’ll come away with renewed ways of working, tools to support healthy conflict and collaboration and some rituals for your team to use as they integrate these new cultural ideas into their existing processes and projects.

  • Creative Recalibration: This is our core ongoing engagement. It’s a multi-part, strategic investment that teams come together over time for coaching and connection as they co-design their own culture and implement it at your organization. Together the team works to align on their shared goals and the meaning they derive from their work together, building shared commitments, sustained trust, cultivating collaborative strength and adaptability and the cultivating the resilience needed to face whatever comes next.

Innovation and Strategy

Non-profit organizations are today’s greatest innovators. In my experience they have innate understanding of how to balance risks against the benefits of new programs and strategies as they continually centre the needs of the communities they serve and the partners they collaborate with. Non-profit teams often have a clear sense of their mission and a strong drive to create impact but can struggle to translate that clarity into the strategies, new programs, or social enterprises that deliver stability while making use of their deep sector knowledge, especially with staff that are spread thin and a pace of change that feels relentless.

Innovation and Strategy engagements bring human-centred design, strategic foresight, and venture-building experience to mission-driven organizations ready to move from intention to action. The work is grounded in the lived experience of your community and staff and is designed to create lasting organizational change without diluting the drive, commitment and focus what makes you who you are.

What this could look like:

  • Strategic planning: Values-driven, community-informed and human-centred, Strategic Planning engagements help organizations evaluate their unique strengths and place in their ecosystem while guiding them through processes that define their direction, make sense of change, and design the purposeful paths that will move them toward the futures they aspire to.

  • New model and program design: These engagements see innovative organizations develop new offerings or models that take advantage of their existing strengths, institutional knowledge and service offerings to establish fresh income streams that are grounded in proven community needs, existing processes and programs, and organizational strengths

  • Innovation training and coaching: These practical, customized workshops and coaching sessions equip non-profit teams with the knowledge and implementation experience needed to bring innovation methodologies into their day to day work, empowering them to drive meaningful change and create impact within and without their organization. Training options include Human-Centred Design, Opportunity Identification, and Venture Validation.

  • Process and service redesign: Front line needs, client insights, and organizational priorities are brought together in these projects to understand the current state of an organization’s service delivery and create experiences that are intentional, accessible, and human-centred for both staff and clients while pursuing the organization’s mandate, mission and strategic goals.

Community Engagement
and Co-Design

Most consultation processes ask communities for input. Few create genuine conditions for shared power, deep listening, and co-creation that results in strategies and services that communities actually need and believe in.

Community Engagement and Co-Design work is grounded in equity-led, participatory approaches that amplify community voices and build with them, not for them, from the start. The result is experiences that garner genuine buy in from both communities and partners and solutions that are more legitimate, more durable, and more human. These sessions empower and the communities you serve to build your shared futures together.

What this could look like:

  • Community engagement: Grounded in equity-led processes that go beyond consultation, these engagement sessions are not about paying lip service or checking boxes but are aim to foster trust, listen deeply, and genuinely learn from the lived experiences of the people most affected by the issues at hand.

  • Co-design workshops: These collaborative sessions centre the perspectives of those with lived experience and translate their needs, knowledge and principles into meaningful programs, strategies, services, and systems.

  • Engagement with Relevant Parties: (Stakeholder Engagement) These inclusive dialogue processes bring the diverse voices of partners, funding providers and organizational peers together to learn from deep sector knowledge and experiences to inform shared goals, advocacy positions and the strategic initiatives that affect their communities and clients.

Testimonials

  • "I had the pleasure of working with Laura during the Peterborough Housing Corporation's strategic planning process. She led our community and board engagement with skill, empathy, and creativity. Laura has a true gift for designing inclusive consultation processes that bring diverse voices. Together and turn that input into meaningful strategic direction. Her authentic style, insight, and collaborative approach made this experience both productive and inspiring. I'd recommend Laura to any organization looking to lead authentic, community-driven planning work. "

    ~ Travis Doak, CEO, Peterborough Housing Corporation

  • "I am happy to recommend Laura for her exceptional work in stakeholder engagement during our recent visioning exercise. Laura's strategic insights and dedication were invaluable as she skillfully navigated diverse stakeholder landscapes, ensuring all voices were heard and considered. Her ability to facilitate open and constructive dialogue not only fostered a collaborative environment but also enriched our understanding of the community's needs and desires. Laura's professionalism, coupled with her genuine passion for enhancing care services, inspired confidence and trust among stakeholders. Her energy and contribution were instrumental in aligning our plans with the aspirations of those we serve, paving the way for a successful and inclusive outcome."

    ~ Marianne Klein, CEO, Shalom Village

  • "I thoroughly enjoyed working with Laura on the housing strategy for the District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board. Laura is a beacon of positive energy, and it is contagious! Laura’s approach is jovial and engaging. Her kindness and compassion shine through consistently. Laura has great listening skills and outstanding strategic abilities. Connecting the dots between housing and the environment, as she does, puts her at the top of the class. I hope I have the chance to work with Laura again."

    ~ Donna Mayer, Manager of Project Development,
    District of Nipissing Social Services Administration Board

  • "Laura's time at Highline Beta was spent working on a variety of projects and juggling multiple priorities. She did everything incredibly well, with determination and creativity. She put a great deal of effort into delivering amazing work for our clients and contributing to the overall team culture and spirit of the company. She was proactive and always willing to jump in and help colleagues and clients with anything they needed. Her structural know-how of innovation systems, coupled with a willingness to "roll with things" was critical to delivering great value on the work she did."

    ~ Ben Yoskovitz, Founding Partner, Highline Beta