Kelly Nichols

In Which We Compare Making Baklava to Creating Successful Community Coalitions

By Sam Woollard We were recently in a meeting when a prospective client compared community planning and coalition work to making baklava. As he described it, it matched perfectly with our experience. Baklava is a dessert of the Middle East and Mediterranean, and it has numerous variations depending on the country of origin. The same […]

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The Secret to Employee Retention

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

It’s quite possible that the secret to employee retention is cute animal photos (they have been proven to make us more productive, after all). In case you are looking for other ideas, here is a joint post from Associates Carol Johnson and Andrea Torres. We hear from our clients that one of the biggest issues

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Clarifying our Value Proposition

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

It’s hard for us to believe, but WNA will be celebrating its three-year anniversary this fall. After two and a half years of doing a variety of interesting and meaningful work, as well as growing our team, it felt like time to revisit the way we are characterizing the services that we provide and the

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Getting Comfortable with Discomfort, a Lifelong Practice

Blog, Uncategorized / By Kelly Nichols

I was recently asked to write an essay on how my participation in an interdisciplinary poverty studies program and internship, the Shepherd Consortium, in college impacted my life and career. I’m sharing it here because I think it’s a good opportunity to express how my background and life experience informs the collective impact work that

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Building Our Strengths-Based Toolbox

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

As you know if you’ve worked with us previously, we are big fans of tools that highlight the strengths of individuals and teams. We employ a strengths-based approach to strategic and community planning, and we often use appreciative inquiry as a tool for deepening connections to multiply impact with team members, boards, and coalitions. So

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Building a Truly Authentic City

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

I am participating in the 2016 Leadership Austin Essentials class (#bestclassever!) and recently contributed a blog post about our first class day. I thought it would be relevant to share here as well. I was drawn to Austin in the late 70’s because there was no ‘landed gentry’… there was a sense you could

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Coffee with Colleagues: Q&A with Sandy Battise

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

One of WNA’s business goals is to create opportunities and platforms to connect with other skilled professionals through formal and informal partnerships. What’s really fun about this is that we get to connect with other like-minded professionals whose work aligns with our vision to create, grow and sustain initiatives that result in positive social outcomes.

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Meet our New Team Members (and a Love Letter to Bennu Coffee)

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

Here at WNA, we like coffee. We spend a significant amount of time at Austin coffee shops (our favorite is Bennu on E. MLK). In fact, if you’re reading this in Central Texas, it’s likely that you’ve had coffee with us at one time or another. Coffee fuels our work. Bennu also serves as a

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What's a Backbone, Anyway?

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

I attended the Collective Impact Forum‘s Champions for Change workshop last month, and it got me thinking about how we structure collaborative social sector initiatives, especially here in Texas. Wait, buzzword alert. Surely you’ve heard this term, collective impact, right? Everyone’s throwing it around lately. John Kania and Mark Kramer with FSG wrote a landmark

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The Zen of Creating a Common Agenda

Blog / By Kelly Nichols

We recently concluded a 9-month community planning process focusing on children’s mental health in Travis County in partnership with Austin Travis County Integral Care. It was quite a journey and truly a collective impact effort, and my hope is that it will serve as a case study for future community planning initiatives. Like the search

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Strategy, development & support for coalitions, associations, organizations and initiatives

The Zen of Creating a Common Agenda

In Which We Compare Making Baklava to Creating Successful Community Coalitions

The Secret to Employee Retention

Clarifying our Value Proposition

Getting Comfortable with Discomfort, a Lifelong Practice

Building Our Strengths-Based Toolbox

Building a Truly Authentic City

Coffee with Colleagues: Q&A with Sandy Battise

Meet our New Team Members (and a Love Letter to Bennu Coffee)

What's a Backbone, Anyway?

The Zen of Creating a Common Agenda

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