Leading Through Transition: Strategic Storytelling for Organizational Evolution
with Laura Colket
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
In-person at the Tompkins County Public Library, Borg Warner Room
$70 – pre-registration is required

Nonprofits today are being asked to do the impossible: hold steady through funding volatility, generational leadership handoffs, and a rapidly shifting cultural and political landscape — all while staying true to the mission that got them here. It’s tempting to treat storytelling as a communications function, something reserved for the annual report or the year-end appeal. But story is also one of the most underused strategic tools an organization has for navigating change from the inside out.

Through this workshop, participants will learn how to:

• Utilize storytelling as a diagnostic tool to surface which organizational practices and norms still serve the mission — and which were built for a different era
• Tell their own story of leadership in relation to their organization, developing a clearer understanding of how and why they lead — and what that means for leading through this particular moment of transition
• Facilitate a storytelling process to build community and help people and teams sift through the disorientation of transition together
• Translate that internal narrative work into external storytelling that humanizes the organization for funders, board members, and the community — helping people see not just what the work is, but who it’s for

Participants leave with a practical framework for facilitating this work inside their own organizations, plus tools adaptable for both internal culture-building and external communications and fundraising.

Learn more about this workshop

This event is in-person only and will not be recorded.

Masks are optional at in-person events.

All registration sales are final.