Resources

Board Self Assessment

Every board sits on an arc of development. Most have probably never been asked to name where. The 4 stages we see for boards on that arc are: Stage What It Looks Like Founding The board exists on paper more than in practice. Roles are still being defined, and most energy is going toward getting […]

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Icebreakers Worth Using In Your Next Virtual Meeting

Many icebreakers fail for one of two reasons. They’re too cute, a novelty that makes people cringe more than connect. Or they’re too generic, a question so broad it produces surface-level answers that evaporate the moment the meeting moves on. At Lumen, we’ve tested a lot of them. What we’ve landed on are icebreakers that […]

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Making Breakout Groups Work

Imagine this: The facilitator sends everyone to breakout rooms. The main room goes quiet. In the small groups: one person takes over. One person says nothing. The task gets completed , or abandoned, and everyone comes back without much to show for it. It’s not hard to imagine, because you’ve seen it before. It happens […]

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The Road Trip Facilitation Tool

Here’s something we see consistently: leaders trying to build culture on a foundation where people don’t actually know one another. Not their roles — them. What they care about, where they come from, what makes them feel seen. Traditions create shared meaning over time. But connection is what makes them land. Without it, even the […]

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Creating Culture Through Tradition

Some of the simplest traditions we’ve seen make the biggest difference: None of these cost money. All of them create the kind of shared memory that holds a culture together when things get hard. Download our Culture Building Resource below for a clear path toward building culture that sticks.

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Testimonials

"They don’t tell you what you want to hear. They tell you what you need to hear. That makes a huge difference. We needed to understand our weaknesses in order to make the organization work right, and I was overwhelmed by how they really got it and they helped us to get it too. They were able to do it in a way that really made me want to understand the goals we needed to focus on. I believe Lumen was absolutely the best we could have found."

Barbara Sellinger
Cresthaven Academy

"I’ve been in nonprofits for 30+ years and have used the services of many consultants, but I have never been so comfortable with their commitment to helping us. It was as if the Lumen team shared our need to have a successful outcome and they were committed to the notion that they would indeed bring value to what we were doing. "

Caroline Novak
Alabama School Readiness Alliance

"The Lumen team did a really good job sharing the hard truths with us. Their findings were different from what we were expecting, but they used the information to push us farther than we originally planned. They were candid and didn’t hide anything from us. We’re now on the path to developing products that are very different from what we’ve done before but are hopefully much more useful for the people we serve."

Drew Jacobs
National Alliance of Public Charter Schools

"The management of a federal CSP grant is a really niche area that requires a tremendous depth of expertise and technical know-how. You need to have a microscopic attention to detail when it comes to compliance and reporting timeliness. The Lumen team is excellent at all of the above. "

Tyler Barnett
New Schools for Alabama

"In my coaching, we make really strong, specific plans for next steps and then we follow up on them in our next conversation. We try to keep those next steps really manageable. When I’m busy, I can’t layer a ton of personal growth on top of my other responsibilities, so we make plans for growth that are baked into the work I’m already doing. That has been really helpful for me. "

Kristen Forbriger
City Fund

"With everything in the CSP world, Lumen has someone on their team with the experience and focus to guide you through the processes. They partnered with us through what would have been a very difficult process had we tried to stumble through it on our own... we probably could have muddled through it as a team, but with their support it was much more smooth, efficient, and professional."

Shannon Greer
Utah Association of Public Charter Schools

"As I got to know the Lumen team, their questions and willingness to support us made it clear they were a good match. They were very engaged, quick to respond, and aligned with how we think as an organization."

Donterrio Marzetti
KIPP Tulsa Public Charter Schools