Try This Archives - Page 2 of 11 - Nicole Clark Consulting

23 Jul, 2025

Try This: Leading Strategic Planning with a Social Work Lens

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-07-23T08:42:52-04:00July 23rd, 2025|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Social Work, Try This|0 Comments

A group of five women of color collaborate around a table with open notebooks and papers. One woman writes while others observe and discuss. Text overlay reads “Try This: Leading Strategic Planning with a Social Work Lens.” — Try this activity to see your social work skills through a strategic lens.

What would be possible if more social workers stepped into strategic planning?

Social workers are natural systems thinkers, collaborators, and process facilitators—exactly the kinds of people organizations need when it’s time to step back and plan for the future.

Yet many social workers don’t see themselves as candidates to lead strategic planning efforts. That role often feels reserved for consultants, executive leaders, or those with formal strategy training. But strategic planning is about understanding people, holding complexity, and guiding values-aligned decisions, as much as it is about frameworks and facilitation.

If you’ve ever supported a group through change, named a pattern that no one else could see, or translated community needs into action, then you already have the foundation to lead a strategic planning process.

This activity helps social workers explore their readiness to lead a strategic planning process at the organizational level—and positions them to claim that leadership with clarity and confidence.

Objective:

To help social workers recognize and articulate the strategic, facilitative, and relational skills they bring to leading an organizational strategic planning process.

This activity is ideal for:

Social workers in program design, implementation, or operations roles
Social workers considering leadership or consulting roles
Social workers interested in using their skills to shape organizational direction

What you’ll need:

45–60 minutes of uninterrupted time
Pen and paper, whiteboard, or digital workspace
Optional: a recent or upcoming strategic planning process in mind

The steps:

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25 Jun, 2025

Try This: The Cross-Sector Collaboration Reset

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-07-09T16:37:49-04:00June 25th, 2025|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Community Partnerships, Cross-Sector Collaborations, Strategic Planning, Try This|0 Comments

Try this activity, and get your collaboration back on track.

Cross-sector work moves fast. Sometimes too fast. That’s where a cross-sector collaboration reset can help.

No matter where you are in your collaboration journey—whether you’re part of a brand-new collaboration or deep into a long-standing one—it’s easy to lose clarity about roles, priorities, or even why you started working together in the first place.

As a result of these dynamics, this 90-minute reflective group activity helps teams pause, reconnect, and realign—especially after tension, transitions, or shifting goals.

It’s less about fixing what’s broken and more about creating space to revisit your “why” together.

Objective:

The goal of this cross-sector collaboration reset is to help cross-sector collaborators reflect on how they’re working together, identify what’s supporting or blocking their success, and explore small shifts that can make a big difference.

This activity is ideal for:

Partners in newly formed collaborations looking to get grounded in shared understanding
Partners in ongoing collaborations who need a recalibration
Cross-sector working groups, coalitions, or co-leadership teams

What you’ll need:

90 minutes
Maybe a facilitator
Ideally, a quiet space (in-person or virtual breakout room)
Digital or physical sticky notes
Flip chart paper or shared virtual whiteboard
Optional: Pre-shared list of partnership goals or agreements

The steps:

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21 May, 2025

Try This: Get Aligned Before the Consultant Joins Your Team

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-05-21T08:34:11-04:00May 21st, 2025|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Group Exercises, Staff, staff capacity, Staff-Consultant Dynamics, Try This|0 Comments

Try this exercise before you hire a consultant.

Before the consultant joins your team, it’s important for staff to get aligned to avoid feeling off-balance.

When roles are unclear or expectations are vague, collaboration can feel more like competition.

That’s where this visual Team Map exercise comes in—giving staff the clarity they need before the consultant ever steps in.

This exercise helps staff clarify who’s doing what, where responsibilities intersect, and how to engage the consultant without feeling overshadowed or sidelined.

Objective:

To help staff clearly define the roles of internal team members and external consultants, while identifying shared responsibilities and collaboration zones before the consultant joins your team.

This is ideal for:

Programming staff who have to work with consultants
Staff overseeing consultant engagement
Staff responsible for hiring or managing consultants across teams

What you’ll need:

30–40 minutes (or longer) of uninterrupted time
A facilitator (internal staff member or team lead)
A quiet space (in-person or virtual)
Chart paper or virtual whiteboard
Sticky notes or digital text boxes
Markers or annotation tools

The steps:

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16 Apr, 2025

Try This: Redefine Your Metrics

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-04-16T09:57:07-04:00April 16th, 2025|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: indicators, metrics, program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

Whether your goal is weight loss or muscle gain, the first thing we tend to measure is the number on the scale. But if you want a more accurate view of your progress, it’s time to redefine your metrics.

In program design and evaluation, the indicators we choose shape not only what we measure—but how we define success. By learning to redefine your metrics, you’re evaluating your progress in a more holistic, human way.

This activity is another example of how evaluation shows up in our everyday, identifying more meaningful, context-driven indicators of progress. Whether you’re thinking about your own growth or your program’s impact, expanding how you measure can shift what you learn and how you respond.

Objective

To help staff apply evaluative thinking to both personal and programmatic progress by identifying non-traditional, meaningful indicators of success.

This activity is ideal for:

Program staff involved in design, implementation, or evaluation
Teams who want to move beyond surface-level outcomes
Organizations interested in becoming more data driven

What you’ll need:

Paper and pen, journal, or notes app
A shared document for team discussion
90 minutes of uninterrupted staff time

The steps:

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19 Mar, 2025

Try This: Learning From Program Participants Who Leave

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-03-25T16:22:49-04:00March 19th, 2025|Categories: Program, Service, & Campaign Design|Tags: Program Participants, program retention, Try This|0 Comments

A row of four chairs against a gray wall, with three white chairs and one orange chair. The text reads 'Try This: Learning From Program Participants Who Leave.' Blog post by Nicole Clark Consulting. — ***Try this out and let me know how it goes.***

Learning from program participants who leave? Have you ever considered this?

Understanding why participants leave a program can provide valuable insights for improvement. Instead of viewing dropouts as failures, organizations can learn from them to refine program structure, engagement strategies, and outreach.

Understanding why someone opts out can highlight gaps in accessibility, program design, or expectations that might not be obvious from the inside. Learning from participant exits allows organizations to make informed adjustments for a better, more aligned experience for future participants. It also helps refine who the program is best suited for, so staff to focus on attracting and retaining the right participants rather than simply boosting enrollment numbers.

Despite knowing how beneficial this is, many organizations hesitate to dig into why participants leave—often due to fears of what may be uncovered. Concerns that exit feedback will highlight program flaws, misalignment, or weaknesses can feel like criticism rather than opportunities for growth. Staff may worry that analyzing dropouts will reflect poorly on their work, leading to uncomfortable conversations with funders or stakeholders. Staff may also feel personally invested in the program’s success and view dropouts as a reflection of their efforts.

Avoiding this doesn’t make the issues disappear. Instead, reframing dropout analysis as a learning tool rather than a failure assessment can empower organizations to create stronger, more effective programs.

Use this activity to analyze participant exit patterns and use feedback to strengthen your program’s impact.

Objective:

Analyze participant exit patterns, use feedback to strengthen program impact, and support staff developing practices in learning from program participants who leave.

This activity is ideal for:

Program managers, coordinators, and staff overseeing participant engagement
Teams looking to improve retention strategies without relying on numbers alone
Organizations that want to align their programs more closely with participant needs
Organizations interested in becoming more data driven

What you’ll need:

Recent program participation and dropout data (if available)
Exit surveys data or interview transcripts from past participants
Flip chart paper or a whiteboard
Markers or sticky notes
Between 60 – 90 minutes for time management

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Objective:

This activity is ideal for:

What you’ll need:

The steps:

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