Key outcomes included:


RESULTS

In 2023, Women’s Advocates sought a partner to support its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals amid recurring implicit-bias challenges, cultural misalignment, and siloed internal dynamics. As a new leader inheriting a complex organizational environment, Holly Henning recognized the need for more than a standard “DEI training.”

What began as a request for unconscious bias training quickly revealed a deeper need: a full-system refresh, centered on healing, shared learning, trust-building, and purposeful cultural transformation.

BUSINESS NEEDS

Firefly partnered with Women’s Advocates through a multi-layered, experiential learning journey—combining leadership retreats, individual Gestalt-based coaching, staff summits, discovery-driven pre-work, and ongoing strategic advising.
Through guided activities around our personal origin stories and Reactive vs. Adaptive Leadership, staff connected personal histories with workplace behaviors—building empathy, reducing reactivity, and creating pathways for healthier collaboration.
  • A Cultural Reset & Shared Language 
Firefly’s diverse team and collaborative style helped staff see themselves in the work. The partnership felt “like an extension of our own team,” reducing resistance and enabling honest dialogue across all levels.
  • Deepened Trust & Psychological Safety
One-on-one sessions and nonverbal feedback practices were especially impactful for staff working directly with survivors. Several team members requested ongoing coaching due to the clarity and relevance of the insights provided.
  • Powerful Gestalt-Based Coaching
Firefly’s discovery process—surveys, interviews, and stakeholder mapping—resulted in dashboards that clarified gaps between perceived and actual culture, and set the foundation for new organizational values to be adopted in an upcoming board retreat.

  • Data-Driven Organizational Alignment
Templates, communications, and scheduling support reduced burden on an overstretched nonprofit team wearing “19 hats.” Firefly held the administrative pieces so Women’s Advocates could focus on meaningful participation.
  • Friction-Free Logistics & Capacity Building
The partnership sparked a desire for deeper connection, collective learning, and true culture change—moving the organization from fragmentation and inherited dysfunction toward community, stability, and renewal.

The pre-work, the dashboards, the retreats, the staff summit—every piece helped us understand who we were, what we inherited, and what we wanted to build. It sparked something larger: a desire for connection, shared learning, and culture change. It also showed our staff that leadership is committed, invested, and willing to do the hard work.

CLIENT PERSPECTIVES

“When we first reached out, we thought we needed support with implicit bias and DEI. What we actually needed was much more: a cultural reset. Firefly helped us see that, and they guided us through it with compassion, honesty, and real partnership.

Working with Firefly felt like adding an extension of our own team. Their diverse facilitators connected naturally with our staff, and the learning felt collaborative rather than prescriptive. The Gestalt coaching and nonverbal feedback were unlike anything we’ve experienced—transformative for a team working with trauma survivors.

The pre-work, the dashboards, the retreats, the staff summit—every piece helped us understand who we were, what we inherited, and what we wanted to build. It sparked something larger: a desire for connection, shared learning, and culture change. It also showed our staff that leadership is committed, invested, and willing to do the hard work.

Firefly held the logistics so we could focus on the transformation. Their support made the process friction-free, which is invaluable in nonprofit life. We’re now entering a season of healing, trust-building, and growth—and Firefly was a critical catalyst in helping us get there.”

— Holly Henning, Executive Director, Women’s Advocate

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

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