Case Study
Bernard van Leer Foundation
The Hague, Netherlands
The Challenge
The Bernard van Leer Foundation works in 13 countries across the globe to ensure that babies, toddlers and the people who care for them have a good start in life. Having a dispersed, global team created unique challenges for the foundation that required creative solutions. Over the course of four days, Cities Reimagined facilitated a series of workshops aimed at breaking down silos, setting organization-wide program milestones, and developing a clear and healthy workflow between leaders and country representatives.
Our Approach:
Think + Gather
Identify Shared Priorities
Before the on-site facilitation, Cities Reimagined met with foundation leaders 1:1 to understand their individual priorities. Using this insight, our team was able to find points of cohesion with other leaders, and spot potential points of conflict that needed to be resolved in-person. This set the stage for a productive day-one session on site where leaders worked together to find their shared priorities and decide which to tackle first.
Set Milestones
Having a distributed team created natural silos across the foundation that made it difficult for leaders to set organization-wide milestones. Using the priorities from session one, team members worked together to populate an annual calendar with goals, deadlines, and celebrations. This created visibility across teams and cohesion in timelines that made it easier for leaders to support one another in their individual streams of work.
Co-Create Solutions
Creating tools that work well for 23 team members spread across 13 countries felt like a daunting task for foundation leaders. However, once we brought all of the team members into one room and gave them the tools they needed to solve their own problems, the tools came to life quickly and easily. Country representatives designed their own program evaluation templates, milestone calendars, and problem solving protocols. This week of co-creation empowered team members to use their expertise and lived experience to design solutions that resonated with them. The leadership team stepped in with guidance and support as needed, but intentionally held space for team members to be creative and self-guided.
