In our last post, we explored why coalition is becoming essential for values-driven organizations. The systems that were supposed to support us are breaking down. Coalition is the infrastructure for what comes next.
But what does coalition actually look like when you’re in the middle of it? While essential funding disappears, as the narrative around your work shifts, and the external pressures threaten to fracture everything you’ve built?
We want to share three stories. One is ours. Two are from organizations we’re supporting right now. Each one shows coalition, both internal and external, as a practice that makes survival (and maybe even thriving) possible.
Building Your Own Narrative
At Leverage to Lead, we’ve been doing our own work of leaning on our values to build a narrative about what we’re stewarding in the world and the impact we can have.
When we began working with organizations in 2019, we were clear that establishing values that informed systems was the foundation of a healthy organization. In 2020, organizations began asking for DEI work. While the foundation of our work has always been equity and inclusion that values diversity, the external narrative around our work began to define us as DEI practitioners. In 2022, we really began telling our own story. We stated our own mission in the world outside of the limited frame of DEI. This is in large part what kept us alive as a functioning business even after DEI fell out of favor. We’re still fighting to tell our own narrative. The system never stops trying to put us in a box.
That narrative kept us grounded when everything around us felt so uncertain. Building that narrative also required that we maintain relationships so we can keep telling our story. People need to understand what we can uniquely offer, which means we can’t work in isolation. We have to show up, connect, explain what we do, and trust that the right partnerships will form from that clarity.
What made this possible: Clarity about what we value and what we offer.
When the external narrative tried to define us, we had to know ourselves well enough to resist it. We had to understand our unique value in the larger ecosystem: what we’re positioned to do that others aren’t. That clarity is what makes you a reliable and consistent partner in external coalition. Without it, you’re just reacting to whatever pressure is loudest.
Seeing Your Part in a Larger Ecosystem
We’re working with an organization that had been operating as if they needed to do everything themselves. Their mission was urgent and expansive, and they felt responsible for all of it. This responsibility often expresses itself in a never-ending fight that comes at the expense of their own well-being.
What we’ve been helping them see is that they’re one part of a much larger ecosystem of people and organizations driving toward the same goals. Other groups are doing adjacent work, sometimes overlapping, sometimes complementary. Instead of competing for the same finite resources or trying to be everything to everyone, they’re learning to ask:
- What are we uniquely positioned to do?
- Where can we collaborate instead of duplicate?
- Who else is already doing this piece well?
- How can we set down our over-responsibility?
- What is ours and ours alone to steward?
This shift from isolated organization to node in a network is what makes coalition possible. And coalition is what makes the work sustainable.
What made this possible: The willingness to redistribute responsibility and the ability to hold stewardship and agency at once.
They had to let go of the myth that they should be able to do it all alone. But they also had to stay clear about their unique contribution. They couldn’t just dissolve into the collective. Sovereignty means you bring your full self, your values, your distinct offering. Solidarity also means you’re committed to the collective good, with enough agility to determine when and where your contribution matters most. When you can hold both stewardship and agency, coalition is real instead of performative.
Values as the Anchor
We’re also supporting a global nonprofit whose reliable philanthropy is no longer reliable. For years, they’d depended on donors who are now focusing their giving primarily on supporting domestic challenges instead of global issues. As a result, they’re building new revenue streams through partnerships. It’s working, but it’s been painful.
In the urgency of staying financially stable, one of their core values got lost: curiosity. The pressure to pivot quickly made it hard to stay curious about what partners needed, about what was emerging, and about each other’s experiences navigating these new expectations and challenges. And without curiosity, the external pressures started to fracture internal relationships. People became reactive and defensive, often defaulting to assumptions.
What’s holding them together now is their explicit return to curiosity as a practice. The urgency hasn’t lessened, but they recognized that without curiosity, they’d lose what makes them effective. Values aren’t static and they need to be re-prioritized depending on what the moment demands. Right now, curiosity is the value that allows them to navigate this pivot without breaking.
What made this possible: Curiosity, flexibility, and trust.
When external conditions shifted, they needed the ability to stay curious about what was emerging and what was actually needed. Urgency wanted to shut that down and pressure wanted to make them rigid. But they recognized that survival required staying flexible and keeping relationships intact. Coalition, internal and external, doesn’t work if it’s transactional. It requires genuine interest and investment in each other’s success, even when scarcity feels real.
The Infrastructure We’re Building
These are examples of what coalition looks like in practice: the internal alignment that makes external partnership possible, the relational capacity that holds when everything else is shaking, and the clarity about values that keeps you grounded when the ground is shifting.
What we’re building now (the coalitions, the networks, the relationships) will be the infrastructure that holds us through what’s coming. This isn’t temporary or a stopgap until things “get back to normal.” There is no going back. The institutions that are breaking aren’t coming back stronger.
The networks we build now are what we’ll rely on in the future. Values-driven organizations have a role in this as nodes in a larger web.
Sustainability is about building networks resilient enough that when one part is struggling, others can hold the weight. This requires trust, clarity about values, and the willingness to let go of scarcity thinking. It also requires acknowledging that we’re not all starting from the same place. Some have more resources, more stability, and more access to power. Coalition means those with more show up differently than those with less, but everyone shows up around the challenge they are solving for.
Systems are collapsing. What we build in response will determine what comes next. Coalition is how we take care of each other when the current institutions can’t. It’s how values-driven organizations stay in the work without burning out their people. It’s how we create the conditions for something better than what we inherited.
Who are you building coalition with?