The Overlap

Organizational development for nonprofits

Help your team work the way your strategy needs.

I help nonprofit leadership teams get clear on priorities, roles and how they work together, then test small changes that last.

Book an intro call booking for 2027 →
your strategy your week we work here

Three ways to work together

lightest → biggest

Most nonprofits I meet already have a strategy. The hard part is between the plan and the week: who decides, how work moves across roles, and what to do on Monday. Each offer starts with a free 30-minute call to see if it fits.

2–3 weeks

01 · Start here

Team workshop

For teams that want to try working with me on one clear question first: an offsite, a retro, a priorities reset, or a conversation about roles that keeps getting put off.

What happens
  1. A design call to name the question and who needs to be in the room.
  2. I design the agenda and share it with you for feedback.
  3. A facilitated session, half or full day, in person or remote.
  4. A short write-up of what the team decided and suggested next steps.

You leave with decisions on the question you brought, a record of them, and a feel for working together.

6–8 weeks

02 · Leaders

Priorities & roles reset

For an executive director and senior team who feel misaligned on priorities, or who spend their meetings on updates instead of decisions.

What happens
  1. Short interviews with each leader to surface tensions.
  2. A half-day session to agree on the team's purpose, its top priorities and who decides what.
  3. A new meeting rhythm you run for four weeks with me sitting in.
  4. A closing retro to keep what works and drop what doesn't.

You leave with a one-page leadership team charter, documented decision rights, and meetings that actually bring your nonprofit's goals to life.

2–3 months

03 · Staff

Strategy into practice

For organizations that have just finished a strategic plan and need staff to work toward it, together.

What happens
  1. A staff session that breaks each strategic priority into 1-year, 1-quarter, 1-month and 1-week goals.
  2. A retro on what's getting in the way.
  3. Staff design two or three small experiments in how they work, and run them for eight weeks.
  4. Check-ins every two weeks, then a review to decide what becomes standard practice.

You leave with quarterly goals tied to the plan, experiments your staff chose and tested, and a habit of improving how you work.

Recent work

Strategy into practice Fall 2023
The Donors of Color Network team together by the water
the DOCN team

Donors of Color Network

Turning a new strategic plan into how an all-BIPOC, majority-women staff works, through clear priorities and three eight-week experiments.

Read the case study

The situation

Donors of Color Network brings together high-net-worth donors of color to advance racial justice. They had just finished their 2024–2027 strategic plan, and the next question was how to work so the plan actually happened.

What we did

With their Chief of Staff, I facilitated the staff through two questions: what are our key priorities right now, and what can we do now to move the three-year strategy forward? Each lead broke their part of the plan's six priorities into 1-year, 1-quarter, 1-month and 1-week goals.

Then we looked at what was in the way. Each role owned its own function, but it wasn't clear how the functions added up to the larger goal of nurturing a community of donors. So people didn't work across functions, even though they knew they needed to.

What changed

The staff designed three experiments to run for eight weeks:

  1. Every deadline goes on the shared calendar, so priorities are visible to everyone.
  2. One shared doc for all DOCN events, so events don't overlap and each producer gets support.
  3. Weekly meetings open to anyone's problem, so people solve things together instead of alone.

Small changes, but they gave the team a way to work across functions toward the plan. The work also included a staff retreat designed with Rivera Consulting and MLG Circles.

Priorities & roles reset Oct 2023 – Feb 2024
Climbing community leaders holding Global Climbing Initiative, Cebu and Iloilo banners
leaders from Cebu & Iloilo

Global Climbing Initiative

Leaders from three Philippine climbing communities set a vision, mission, strategy and roles. A year later, Iloilo had elected officers, run a festival and trained members to maintain their own crags.

Read the case study

The situation

Outdoor climbing in the Philippines has grown fast, but the communities that look after the crags face real barriers. Access isn't always easy, route information is hard to find, and it's often unclear who maintains the safety bolts. These groups are volunteer-run and short on resources.

Global Climbing Initiative asked me to support three of them: the Cebu Rock Climbing Community, the Iloilo Climbing Community and Cagayan de Oro Climbing. As a Filipino American climber, this one was close to my heart.

What we did

With Veronica Baker Amores, GCI's Executive Director, I designed and facilitated two two-day sessions with leaders from each community. Together they worked through:

  • What do we want our climbing areas to look like in the future?
  • How do we keep them accessible, and how do we protect them?
  • What kind of climbing community do we want to foster?
  • What political, social and cultural barriers are in the way, and how do we get past them?

Each community came out with a vision, a mission, a strategic plan and defined roles. In February 2024 I followed up with Iloilo on a now / next / later priorities plan built from the workshop's themes.

What changed

Over the next year and a half, the Iloilo community worked through those priorities. They:

  • elected officers and set up an organizational structure,
  • ran climbing workshops and shared the finances publicly,
  • organized Igbarocks, a festival at their home crag in Igbaras that drew climbers from across the Philippines,
  • and, with the Cebu community, took bolting clinics so they can maintain the safety of their own crags.

Read more: Philippine climbers building their own future (Sterling Rope).

Airbnb

Ways of working with the Korea, Canada and Mexico teams, the Community Blueprint team, and talent planning for Global Markets. 2025–2026.

Sephora

With BlackGlass, moved a 400-person marketing organization toward cross-functional teams. 2025.

garden3D

Led the company's org development efforts. Product strategy for Brooklyn Museum, Stripe, Google, IBM, and many startups. 2019–2023.

The Ready

Employee #5. Operating-system transformations at GE, Charles Schwab, Citi and VSECU. 2016–2019.

Orgs I've worked with

What people say

Everything is smoother with Tim in the room.
Cofounder, Swell
After our sessions, my team regularly reflects and is much more open.
Country Manager, Airbnb
Tim is a big reason our company works in a transparent way.
Founder
Tim facilitating a workshop, standing at a whiteboard titled Practices that's me, mid-workshop

Hi, I'm Tim.

I'm Tim Casasola (ka·sa·so·la). For ten years I've helped organizations work better, starting as employee #5 at The Ready and most recently on Airbnb's org design and development team.

As a climber of color, I care deeply about social justice and the environment. I wanted to offer my experience and skills to organizations I believe in.

Along the way I've edited many seminal works on OD, including Brave New Work and Hidden Patterns. Outside work, I host Rock and Rice, a podcast where Filipino climbers share their stories.

My personal site is timcasasola.com.

Have a plan, and a team stuck between it and the week?

Book a 30-minute intro call. We'll talk about where your team is and whether I can help.

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Field notes on nonprofit OD: subscribe to The Overlap on Substack