Be the Catalyst of your
Impact is tricky
Organizations are under pressure to deliver ever-greater impact. Finding solutions to complex challenges is quite difficult and, very often, leaders don't know how to unlock peoples' creativity and teams’ collective intelligence. And it's rare for leaders to know how to create the conditions for both, which makes enduring impact especially challenging.
Process isn't enough
Teams and leaders trying to solve difficult problems usually turn to processes and tools for help. After all, they're tangible and seem efficient and reliable. While process and tools do have their place, most organizations rely too much on them which distracts them from the most powerful asset for solving challenges. People.
Collective intelligence is the key
The magic of innovation lies in people. Creative problem solving approaches that focus on individual and team dynamics have been shown to enable better solutions - over and over. We've developed and used profoundly human approaches for decades to help Fortune 50 teams solve their toughest challenges. We would like to help you do the same.
why we exist
Creative Catalyst is an educational nonprofit that empowers nonprofit organizations to better fulfill their missions. We do this by building the capability of teams to solve their own challenges, and the capability of leaders to create the conditions for innovation. The end-game is to build organizations' capacity to deliver enduring impact.
how we serve
We take people, teams, and leaders on a journey of learning and solving using creativity, strategy, and problem solving practices that have created billions of dollars in revenue in for-profit companies. We're bringing these approaches to nonprofits that otherwise wouldn't have access to them.
We also work with professionals and for-profit companies to solve their challenges. The revenues from those partnerships are used to support nonprofit partners in pursuit of their missions.
what we prioritize
We prioritize partnerships with organizations and practitioners based on 4 areas consistent with U.N. Sustainable Development Goals:
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Ensure inclusive and equitable education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Promote full and productive employment and decent work for all
the creative catalyst manifesto
In the tapestry of human evolution, woven with threads of discoveries and setbacks, a new pattern emerges: the urgency of unleashing our creative genius. And at its core? A confluence of Curiosity, Creativity, and Connecton.
Curiosity: It's the spark that ignites the soul. This isn't just a whimsical glance at the world; it's a deep dive into the oceans of the unknown. It's the refusal to accept things as they are, and the childlike curiosity to ask "Why?" and "Why not?" Curiosity doesn’t just look at the horizon; it wonders what's beyond it.
Creativity: If curiosity is the question, creativity is the answer. It's the alchemy of turning the ordinary into extraordinary. It doesn’t wait for lightning to strike; it dances in the rain. Creativity isn’t a talent; it's a choice, a daily commitment to see and do differently.
Connection: But the spark of curiosity and the flame of creativity can only light up the world when fanned by the winds of collaboration. Great ideas come from the collective intelligence of diverse teams. Together, we are always more potent, insightful, and brilliant than we are in isolation.
The silent thread binding them all is courage. The desire to ask questions others shy away from, the tenacity to create amidst doubt, and the bravery to reach out when it’s easier to pull away. Courage isn’t the absence of fear but forging ahead in spite of it.
In this shifting mosaic of life, remember: It’s not the loudest voices that reshape our world, but the most courageous. The ones armed with curiosity, wielding creativity, strengthened by connection, and emboldened by unyielding courage.
For in the confluence of these three, the future doesn't just unfold; it is boldly and brilliantly crafted. Embrace your creative genius. Your future isn't waiting; it’s begging to be created.
the creative challenge
"The creative adult is the child who survived" — Ursula Le Guin
We are born with untainted creativity. Our young selves, unclouded by societal preconceptions, see the extraordinary in the ordinary and imagine without constraints. Then society, obsessed with the quantifiable, unwittingly relegates creativity to the backseat, favoring the comfort of what's known and safe.
Yet, profound innovation doesn't arise from following the map of where others have been but from discovering new paths. This is our challenge and opportunity: to bring people's full brilliance to life and discover our collective intelligence to see differently and solve our greatest challenges. This is where enduring impact lies.
what we've learned
We've spent decades helping for-profit and nonprofit teams solve complex innovation challenges. We have learned that processes and tools are not the key to solving complex problems. Why? Because predefined steps with built-in assumptions often lead teams to miss unexpected insights, twists, and turns.
Complex, ambiguous challenges require a more adaptive approach. We've learned that the key to brilliant solutions lies in connected, purpose-driven teams that discover and unleash their collective intelligence. Rather than ask teams to "trust the process" we ask them to be fully human.
Over time, we synthesized a set of creative practices, a little pattern language of sorts, that have helped people to reveal their creative genius and teams to discover their collective intelligence. These practices have been used together in weeks-long solving journey, and individually to help people to solve focused challenges. They aren't magic but they help reveal the magic that lies within each of us.
our origin story
In 2004, Procter & Gamble created the clay street project, an 'innovation hothouse' where teams go to solve intractable business and organizational challenges. The clay street team facilitated community non-profits and P&G teams as we lived our mantra - create the conditions, reveal the genius, for lasting impact.
The clay street project had a reputation for helping teams solve challenges that couldn't be solved inside the business. Many saw clay street as a strange place where teams did strange things, probably because teams worked in a deeply human and relational ways that were foreign to the business. Our approach brought deep humanity to the work as it helped people bring their full selves and teams discover their collective intelligence. It was a new way of working and the results were undeniable.
After several years of practice, the clay street staff began clarifying the practices that most helped teams to see and solve differently. After months of introspection and synthesis we identified 9 'enduring truths' - experiences that consistently helped teams see differently and solve brilliantly.
A litmus test for us came when Roger Martin, one of the top business thinkers of our time, came to give us his perspective on our truths. He read them and said "This is about being human. Who wouldn't want these?" and turned to me and said "You need to write this book". Not knowing how these practices might translate to a book, we were left with wondering what the 'book' was. This work is that book.
Our gratitude goes out to those responsible for birthing and incubating this work: to Ivy Ross for her bold vision at Mattell, Claudia Kotchka and AG Lafley for their drive to discover to new ways to innovate at P&G, and David Kuehler for founding the clay street project; and the many good people of clay street who brought new ways of working to life - Karen Hershenson, Elise Edelman, Lisa Jensen, Jason Born, RJ Sargent, Courtney Bott, Jennifer Bollinger-Voegele, Devin Baldridge, Michael Luh, Tiff Stevens, Beth Malone, Wanda Vestermark, Nancy Schultz, Tracy Connor, Mukara Meredith, Greg Lee, Rocco Dal Vera, MaryPat Buck, Sean Sauber, Hans Eshuis, and Jenny Weigand.
what we help you do
Catalyze Creativity
‘Plant seeds’ that inspire people and teams to learn and practice behaviors that unleash creativity.
Pilot in April 2024
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Focusing on one creative practice as a platform for practice and reflection, we orchestrate lessons and dialogue to energize and teach human-centered ways of working.
Shift Thinking
‘Accelerate the growth’ of teams and ideas to discover core insights and deliver holistic solutions.
April 2024 pilot
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We help shift thinking by creating immersive experiences for multi-functional teams to deepen relationships, discover insights and solve holistically.
Create the Conditions
‘Cultivate the soil’ by helping leaders create the conditions for innovation in their teams and organizations.
July 2024 pilot
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We develop and deliver customized coaching and learning experiences for organization leaders to help them unleash the creative potential of their organization.