Clients
Our current work in the world inspires us to stay on the path to our own fullest creative potential and greatest integrity. Here are some sample projects from our work with clients in the government, non-profit and corporate sectors.
We are inspired by Amazon’s ambition to better understand creativity, where it comes from and what it yields, to expand the potential of their employees and the corporation overall. Creative Ground presented on “Creativity: Harnessing Our Innate creative Potential” as part of a series the company was hosting on creativity and innovation.
We are inspired by the leadership of Art With Heart to expand its vision for their art therapy materials that have helped thousands of young people struggling with difficult and traumatic life experiences. Creative Ground supported the staff and board to work together to imagine a more explicit long-term objective to deepen the impact of the Art with Heart’s work and effect more systemic change in how we deal with trauma throughout the US and internationally. Creative Ground has also provided 1:1 mentoring for its executive director to leverage her fullest creative leadership potential.
We are inspired by the efforts of the Austin Foundation to re-vision the long-term outcomes of the health and fitness work they do with young people. Through a collective visioning process, Creative Ground supported them to imagine a world where health and wellness programs for young people are so integrated into the systems that hold them, that the organization can transform from a “stop-gap” program to a self-sustaining consulting business for health and wellness.
We are inspired by the early efforts of this new, non-profit to re-imagine an education system that includes vibrant learning in music and the arts. Through a creative brainstorm and visioning process, the Foundation set a clear goal for systemic change in public education that would support deeper involvement in music learning from the earliest grades through high school, leading to a much expanded set of options for student life pathways.
Federation of State Conservation Voter Leagues
We are inspired by the choice of this capacity building division of the National League of Conservation Voters to dedicate two days for staff to challenge old beliefs and perceptions, develop an expanded repertoire of creative tools and comprehensively recalibrate their team dynamic to find a new level of excellence in programmatic reach and effectiveness. The result is a team that has shed limiting ideas of who they are, as individuals and as a team, and discovered how they can harness the power of their deeper purpose and individual gifts to direct us even more intentionally towards a planet that is alive and whole.
The Johnson City Development Authority
We are inspired by Johnson City Tennessee’s efforts to revitalize their town through a collective visioning of what “home” looks like in 20 years. Creative Ground supported seventy people representing a diverse cross section of the city to come together for a day to build their fluency in creativity, expand the field of possibility, and imagine a new vision for their town of the future. From this work, they agreed on 12 core principles that would be used to guide all future private and public development and investment, leading to a cohesive vision over time.
We are inspired by the Arts Council to organize an annual conference every year for arts educators from across the tri-state region focused on inspiring and building the skills of teachers and administrators to include a vibrant arts curriculum in all schools. Creative Ground has presented as their keynote speaker a few times and has supported them to develop a indigenous version of Arts Corps for their region, serving lon-income communities.
MacDonald-Miller Facility Solutions
We are inspired by the leadership of MacDonald-Miller to design and invest in a new approach to a staff retreat for its top 30 executives in 2011. Creative Ground supported their vision to focus on developing staff’s capacities for creativity and innovation by designing a evening activity to expand perspectives and build group cohesion and facilitating a half-day workshop on creative practice. We hear the retreat this year was the most successful of many years preceding, and the environment of trust and more creative problem-solving to support innovation is beginning to emerge.
We are inspired by Real Change to, every morning, provide employment opportunities to those of us living at the edge, write a outstanding weekly paper, advocate for doing the right thing when it comes to social justice, and also sleep and eat just enough to get up and do it again the next day. Real Change invited Creative Ground to refuel and renew their core staff through a day of creative practice. We watched them unpack some internal dysfunction, embrace individual accountability, imagine a new way to work together, and reclaim whatever pieces of themselves they need to transform Real Change into the powerhouse for social change it is destined to become.
We are inspired by Plexipixel, a full service interactive agency working with world-class brands, who is committed to creating a culture where all employees are doing their best work and are invested in and accountable for the success of the organization. PlexiPixel invited Creative Ground to work with their staff over two days of workshops to draw out individual strengths, collectively imagine a new way to work together and ensure everyone is more aligned around the agency’s vision. Creative Ground also provided 1:1 executive mentoring to ensure its leadership had the tools to support the change taking place within their teams.
Seattle Parks, Citywide Athletics
We are inspired by the team at Citywide Athletics led by Dennis Cook to set aside time to focus on rebuilding trust, accountability and more effective communications at an all-day staff retreat this fall. The strain of budget cuts, too much work and not enough time, had disrupted the team’s ability to work with their full power and purpose intact. Creative Ground helped the team recalibrate using creative practice as a foundation for expanded awareness and new perceptions as well as develop some new, more practical agreements for how they were going to work together on a day-to-day basis.
Seattle Parks, Executive Leadership Team
We are inspired by the Superintendent of the Seattle Parks Department and his executive leadership team to invest a full retreat to expanding their capacities for leadership and innovation in extremely challenging economic times. The sustained reductions in investment in the City budget overall, and in particular, in the Parks Department has been a catalyst for refining the collective vision of this essential community service and growing the creative capacities of all staff to re-tool and re-imagine the excellence and legacy of their work with the City. Creative Ground was honored to facilitate such an authentic and engaged team of leaders.