PORTFOLIO
How might an education giant accelerate innovation in its sector?
REINVENTION LAB
Teach for America launched the Reinvention Lab as an engine for innovation within the organization, refining a vision for the future of education and launching new products and experiences to accelerate that vision. Since its inception, we have worked alongside the Lab’s founder to develop the team’s strategy and drive organizational learning — crafting a research agenda, facilitating retreats and rituals, socializing change across the organization, and synthesizing insights to share with the broader world.
How might we connect more people to work that fuels their fire?
CAREER DAY
FOR THE SOUL
In the wake of Covid-19, leaders across every sector are rethinking what work means to them. They are hungering for opportunities that let them do meaningful work while honoring their full selves outside of it. We partnered with Larnell Vickers and his amazing team to bring the virtual career coaching and learning they had been doing into a life-changing in-person retreat. These spaces helped people zero in on the values that matter most for this chapter of their lives, and build a toolkit of skills that will help them make their next big career leap.
How might a student leadership non-profit scale its impact?
GRIPTAPE
GripTape puts young people in the driver’s seat of their education, empowering them to learn what they want, how they want. With a couple years under its belt, the GripTape team wanted to codify their model in ways that would enable them to scale their impact. Over several months, we helped to identify and articulate the magic behind the organization and distill it into modular tools the team could share and monetize.
How might a community hub ignite the next wave of innovators?
THE CATALYST FELLOWSHIP
The Opportunity Trust, a St. Louis non-profit, wanted to elevate and equip promising education leaders in St. Louis to spark transformation across the community. We designed and facilitated the yearlong Catalyst Fellowship, which is now on its seventh cohort. Participants immerse in student perspectives, explore how the world is changing, visit learning environments across the country, and design solutions that can be piloted and evolved over time. The fellowship has yielded new schools, innovative nonprofits, and waves of change across many other contexts.
How can philanthropy leaders move more money, more impactfully?
P150
More and more often, ultra-high-net-worth individuals rely on expert philanthropy advisors to direct millions of dollars toward some of the world’s most pressing issues. But these advisors are hamstrung by the same issues: They are too often siloed from their peers, and they lack the network and bandwidth to offer expertise across a wide range of issue areas. In early 2022, Lemon Battery partnered with a coalition of these advisors to envision and launch P150 — a membership community that connects and equips the globe’s top philanthropy advisors. In addition to building the initial concept, Lemon Battery has helped to design the tools and spaces where members can collaborate and the facilitate the in-person gatherings that catalyze the community.
How might educators expand their idea of what’s possible?
THE INSPIRATION PROJECT
Courageous educators across the country are working to rethink what school can be. But their vision for what’s possible is often boxed in by what they’ve seen. Alongside Brittany Erickson, Christina Jenkins, and Marielle Narcisa, we launched The Inspiration Project, a series of immersive virtual “field trips” that introduce cutting-edge learning models. We offer educators exposure to new ideas, along with the tools and space to apply them to their own work.
How can parents be co-creators of their child’s education?
BRIDGE2HOPE
Only 5% of black 8th grade students in St. Louis are proficient in math. Parents are outraged by this reality, but often don’t know where to begin to make change. Bridge2Hope empowers these families to demand the education their children deserve. Over two years, we partnered with their team to crystalize their long-term strategy and to design their signature offering: a fellowship for parents to learn the building blocks of advocacy, from having effective meetings with a teacher to organizing with others to demand policy change.