Collective Impact Insights

If your team is struggling with silence in meetings, guarded language, or chronic exhaustion, you are dealing with the biological baseline of trauma. Trauma, whether individual, collective, or historical, reconfigures how people perceive themselves and the world. In the intimate and private realms, from the family home to the prison cell, trauma dictates a person’s ability to feel safe in a room with others.

State surveillance in red states represents more than policy; it is the operationalization of power to erase trans identities. In Rooted Together, we call for a Mycelium of Resistance. Nonprofits must move beyond advocacy to build Parallel Governance—decentralized systems of safety, digital sovereignty, and mutual aid. By creating infrastructure the state cannot track, we peacefully undermine authoritarian control and move from survival to sovereignty.

To become a savvy steward, you must move beyond these three expressions of ‘power over’ and begin cultivating ‘power with’ – the shared strength that emerges when power is distributed rather than hoarded.

Starting a movement requires more than a lone dancer on a hillside; it requires the courage of a first follower and the strength of a shared foundation. To move beyond a fleeting moment toward a self-sustaining ecosystem, we must shift from 'power over' to 'power with.' Discover how to transform individual action into collective agency by creating relational safety, distributing leadership, and building a 'person-proof' root system that ensures your mission thrives long after

In the social impact sector, change-makers often focus on 'clarity' as a single metric for success. We chase clear spreadsheets, clear KPIs, and clear organizational charts (top-down management). We must move past the lens of clarity and activate the essential frequency of resonance (bottom-up amplification).

Who are the power players in your community? Are they charismatic, creative leaders who get things done for the community? Is it sustainable, shared power that brings people together or is it authoritarian power sustained through coercion and fear?

he Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade threatens the lives of everyone who can become pregnant, removes personal autonomy over the bodies of people with uteruses, and forces pregnancies onto people who do not want to be pregnant.

Our country is in the midst of a democratic crisis. It is the responsibility of White folks to clean up this mess and dismantle our country's white supremacist infrastructures. What does that mean for nonprofits?

Our call to educate is intertwined with making actionable change; as we discuss how we, as consultants, can incorporate these activists' insights into our own consulting firms, the nonprofits, and movements we serve. I'm sharing the discussion questions and action items I've drafted for The Revolution Will Not Be Funded in hopes that other nonprofit professionals will take this opportunity to critically think about the long-term consequences of the "nonprofit industrial compl

When we examine where donations have gone, we begin to ask if the communities being hit the hardest are the ones receiving the resources.

The nonprofit sector often operates as a "white space"—an environment where an implicit racial order demands that leaders of Color "pass inspection" for provisional acceptance. Following Cyndi Suarez’s critique of how these spaces sanitize racial justice into "diversity," Talem Consulting is launching two parallel governance initiatives.

If you are a reimbursing employer you must pay 100% of unemployment costs before you are eligible for 50% forgiveness.

My own faith has informed my nonprofit work where I have built communication strategies for communities of color and diverse faiths

The country is still reeling from the aftermath of the presidential elections. There is a lot at stake for marginalized communities. Many are grieving, fearful, and anxious for their and their children’s future. It’s ok to process this outcome in a way that is best for you. For the nonprofit community, the consequences that will unfold from this are still unknown. What we do know is that while we cannot control other people’s behavior we can control our response to it.