WHAT WE DO

LIMINAL COLLABORATION

adjective \lim-uh-nl\ ; noun \ kuh-lab-uh-rey-shuhn \

The in-between space groups share when they take on a big issue but before it has been resolved.

The liminal space can feel unsettling. It’s uncertain and ambiguous, but it’s also a space that encourages learning, discovery, and connection. It’s a space that promotes experimentation, challenges norms, sparks creativity, and helps communities generate innovative solutions.

We are here to help people and communities embrace the magic of the liminal space, paving a path from the current reality to transformational change. We believe that collaboration is the bedrock of this pathway, and that community residents and groups who come together to create change will achieve the best results.

This isn’t easy work though, and in our experience, it’s rare for traditional leaders and content experts (i.e., public health, housing, economic development) to join forces with community residents (those that know an issue area first-hand) and unite around solutions. We’d like to change this, and help people with the process of collaboration, bringing people together across differences to solve problems and create more resilient communities.

We hope that Liminal Collaboration is not only an organization that provides support to communities, but also a community itself – a place where those involved in and leading collaborative efforts feel at home to share, learn, and gain energy to continue the messy, but incredibly fulfilling work of creating community change.

We keep this top of mind as we help people in communities more effectively collaborate through coaching collaborative groups, supporting leaders in organizations, training and facilitation, and creating helpful tools.

Our mentor and friend, David Chrislip, developed the Collaborative Premise, and it lays the foundation for our approach:

“If you bring the appropriate people together, as peers, in constructive ways with good content and context information, they will create the most authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of the organizations and the community.”

We continually explore and build upon this premise as we work in communities, creating a road map for working together. We think a lot about how to build trust, share power, and ultimately achieve equitable and sustainable outcomes. We also think a lot about what makes a collaborative leader. What mindsets and skillsets are needed to create open and credible processes that allow people to work together and address the problems that concern them?

Collaboration is messy, and we continue to learn more in every conversation and discussion we have with those of you across the country who are embracing the mess. We fundamentally believe that if people in communities want to disrupt business as usual, collaboration is the only way forward. We’ve seen it work in many communities, even those facing the most daunting challenges, and look forward to sharing those lessons with you.

We want to learn from you! We hope you’ll join us in the movement where collaboration is the default and people have the skills they need to work together for change.