Facilitation

Helping groups think, decide and act together – within one organisation or across a whole movement.

We come in when a group has something real to work out: a new strategy, a difficult decision, a tension that keeps coming back, an alliance waiting to form. We design each process around it, with the people who will have to carry the outcome.

Participants at the Wikimedia Summit 2024 raise their hands in a crowded hall.
Photo: Jason Krüger, CC BY-SA 4.0

How facilitation helps

Working together well takes more than good intentions. It takes spaces that are well held and processes that are well designed.

We work with single teams, boards and organisations – strategy days, away days, organisational development – and we bring groups together across organisations and movements to find common ground and act on it. Either way, facilitation helps groups get past what is blocking them, agree where their energy should go and find a way forward they can all act on.

How we work together shapes the world we build.

What we offer

Workshops

Focused sessions where your group works on its own situation, and the learning comes from that work. Topics include:

  • Organisational development. Structures, roles and decision making that fit what you are trying to do, including consent-based decision making: decisions nobody objects to, not decisions everyone loves.
  • Strategy development. A clear diagnosis, firm priorities and actions that pull together, worked out on your own situation.
  • Power analysis. Map the power around your issue and where it is breaking down.
  • Narratives. Find the common sense that holds your issue in place, and the stories that could shift it.
  • Movement mapping. A shared picture of who is active, how they connect and where the gaps are.
  • Bespoke sessions. Something else? We design workshops around what your group needs.

For support over the longer term, see accompaniment.

Ecosystem facilitation

Working at the level of a whole movement: brokering connections, working through tensions between groups and creating the conditions for alliances to form – often between groups that rarely share a room. The aim is alliances, coalitions and networks built to last and to win.

At The World Transformed, we facilitated a meeting of several groups pushing for internal democracy in Your Party. Together they built a common platform, which passed TWT’s third assembly with an overwhelming majority.

What is ecosystem facilitation?

Gatherings and conferences

Design and facilitation of gatherings of every size, from a team away day to a three-day international summit with more than 170 participants, balancing new ideas with decisions that stick. For large events we work with a trusted network of facilitators and scale our support as needed.

We use a sliding scale, so unfunded groups can work with us too. See fees and how we work.

How we work

Collective sensemaking

If a group cannot agree on what is happening, it will not agree on what to do. We use boards, sticky notes and structured conversation to turn many individual readings into a shared one that the group owns – including with people who do not already share your worldview.

Collective decision making

Good collective decisions rest on shared understanding, and they hold because people were part of making them. We bring a range of methods for deciding well in large groups and across organisations.

Learning by doing it

The way a session runs is part of what it teaches: people leave having decided and acted together, not only having talked about it.

More on how we approach learning

An international example

Good enough is perfect – a Wikimedia playbook for collective deliberation

Our guide to designing and facilitating collective deliberation: a process for a large group to discuss, assess and decide on its shared position on a strategic or governance proposal.

We developed the process for the Wikimedia Summit 2024 in Berlin, where more than 170 Wikimedians from around the world found a strong collective position on the Wikimedia Movement Charter.

Read the playbook How we facilitated the Summit

What people say

Linda supported us to cover a lot more ground than we expected and we all left feeling energised and forward looking. The time was well managed; there was enough time for sticky tensions but without dwelling on them. Linda’s gentle facilitation style brought that out in everyone and that’s just what we needed. The positivity we generated on the day enabled us to go and bring more people on board because we all believe in the strategy we created together.

Abortion Support Network, strategy day

My expectations of the convergence we could achieve were far exceeded. Thanks to our collective efforts and the work of the Movement Ecology Collective, the Summit was a great success!

Participant, Wikimedia Summit 2024

I have been at a lot of conferences, and this was the best-facilitated one I have attended in a very long time.

Participant, Wikimedia Summit 2024

Concept and program were extremely well thought-out, and well organized during the event. The structure and pacing of the program provided an excellent environment for making progress. I was impressed by how much of it was made in just 2 1/2 days.

Participant, Wikimedia Summit 2024

I can’t recommend the Movement Ecology Collective more highly – they’ve really helped to unlock some new ways of thinking and working that are proving extremely helpful.

Partner organisation, facilitation

Planning a strategy day, a gathering or an alliance?

Tell us what you are working on. The first conversation is free.

Get in touch