Aligning Around What’s Actually Possible
Organization Type: Federal financial institution in partnership with economic mobility and community-driven organizations
“I think we’ve been kind of dancing around some of these things for a while. Today it felt like we actually started saying the quiet parts out loud.”
The Challenge
Across the U.S., communities working to expand economic mobility, particularly for people impacted by incarceration and trauma, face persistent systemic barriers. Even with strong local leadership and philanthropic investment, progress often stalled due to misaligned expectations between funders, employers, and frontline practitioners.
Workforce strategies struggled to address the realities of trauma, stress, and human development. Employers were hesitating to change internal policies. Funders pushed for timelines misaligned with on-the-ground conditions. The result: well-intentioned efforts that failed to produce durable outcomes.
Our Role
humanature served as both subject matter experts and technical assistance partners within a national community revitalization initiative. We opened the program with a plenary experience introducing human ecology and human-centered design as core operating frameworks for workforce development, equipping participants to see how human performance science directly affects retention, productivity, and equity.
Working closely with a regional backbone organization supporting justice-impacted populations, we facilitated candid cross-sector conversations about power, philanthropy, and accountability. We introduced tools and language that allowed employers, funders, and community leaders to move beyond zero-sum thinking and toward systems that support both human well-being and organizational performance.
The Outcome
The work created alignment across sectors that had previously struggled to collaborate effectively. Stakeholders clarified what change was feasible within real constraints and began designing workforce strategies grounded in local reality. By centering humanity as a shared value and operating principle, the initiative advanced equity plans that were both values-driven and implementable, setting conditions for long-term systems change.