Pro Tip: Client Intake Form for Designing Successful Sessions
Featured Program: Mastering ToP® - Now Starting in April!
Case Study: Otsego's Strategic Plan to Scale Long-Term Growth Amid Population Rise
Upcoming Speaking Engagement
Mission Update
Message From Our CEO
Dear Friends and Fellow Leaders,
I am thrilled to share an exciting new project that is close to my heart—a book exploring the intricacies of leadership within collaborative systems involving multiple stakeholders. This work, based on extensive research into loosely coupled systems, aims to provide fresh insights into leadership practices that transcend traditional hierarchies.
The book’s development is a collaborative journey, and I’m inviting you—my community of thoughtful and inspiring leaders—to play a pivotal role in shaping it. Your feedback through our survey will help guide the title, style, and overall message of this book, ensuring it resonates with leaders like you.
The book draws on interviews, observations, and focus groups, revealing four key aspects of the leadership process:
Purpose (the “why”),
Accountability (the “what”),
Influence (the “how”), and
Key Individuals (the “who”).
These elements, combined with leadership at different levels —from the system as a whole to founding members—demonstrate how collaborative systems adapt, thrive, and achieve their goals. The research highlights practical strategies for taking responsibility, fostering collaboration, building teams, and striking the delicate balance between chaos and order, stability and flexibility, standardization and innovation.
Your voice matters. By contributing your perspective through the survey, you’ll help us create a book that truly reflects the needs, challenges, and aspirations of leaders navigating today’s complex environments.
Let’s co-create something meaningful—together. Your insights will not only shape this book but also inspire leaders worldwide to embrace collaboration and lead with purpose. Thank you for being part of this journey. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing this exciting new book with you soon!
Irina Fursman, Ed.D CEO, HueLife
Upcoming Courses
HUE™ Conversations
Developed by HueLife, this course teaches you to engage diverse thinking styles, leading to better team decisions and results. It offers a structured approach to helping teams overcome challenges and achieve their goals.
If January wasn't a good time to start MToP you are in luck- We are now launching in April! MToP is a year-long facilitation experiential journey. Deepen your expertise & build your confidence as a facilitator using ToP® tools. You will engage in:
Four Learning Intensives - Each quarter, MToP cohorts meet in person for three days. During the intensives, you will develop confidence in facilitating deep reflection, consensus building, orchestrating group action, and designing for transformative change.
Hands-On Field Experience - Practice implementing methods between intensives to develop a personal style and achieve core competencies.
Group Mentoring - Participate in small group progress updates with peers and a mentor from the HueLife training team throughout the year.
(ToP Facilitation Methods is a prerequisite - See available courses being held prior to MToP launch)
Client Intake Form for Designing Successful Sessions
You’ve taken a facilitation course and are now preparing to meet with your first client. Excitement and a little nervousness might be setting in, but where do you start? What information do you need to gather to set the stage for a successful facilitation experience? For this month’s pro tip, we’re sharing a comprehensive intake form designed to guide you through your initial client meeting. This resource helps you uncover key details about your client’s current situation, goals, and facilitation needs.
Brought to you by the Institute of Cultural Affairs and led by certified HueLife trainers, Mastering ToP® (MToP) is more than just a training program; it’s a transformative experience that empowers you to master ToP® Facilitation Methods. This program provides the tools, processes, and applications needed to engage effectively and inspire change.
MToP consists of four intensives of three days each. So participants spend twelve days in the training room, diving into different aspects of facilitation—who you are and what your style is, understanding group dynamics, and knowing which methods to apply and when.
Intensive I: Facilitating Depth Reflection
Learn to design participatory experiences through methods for focused conversations, historical trends analysis, and image or brand shift.
Intensive II: Facilitating Consensus Building
Refine the skills required to guide a group from divergence or conflict to convergent thinking and shared agreement.
Intensive III: Orchestrating Group Action
Co-facilitate an action planning session with another cohort member for real-world practice in a safe environment while also helping a local non-profit establish a new pathway to success in a change initiative.
Intensive IV: Designing for Transformative Change
Learn to design memorable events, produce sustainable plans, and integrate additional theories and activities to lead change.
Cost Information
We happily work with you so that the Mastering ToP (MToP) is accessible and cost is not a barrier to improving your skills and developing yourself professionally. We offer:
Tiered pricing
Students & Small Non-Profits (budget less than $1million): $4,050
Individuals & Mid-Sized Non-Profits (budget between $1-$5 million): $5,050
Public/Government: $5,500
Corporations & Large Non-Profits (budget more than $5 million): $6,500
Delayed invoicing: We can delay invoicing you until 2025 so that you can apply next year's professional development dollars.
Payment plans: We can set up a payment plan with you. This is an excellent option to split the cost over multiple fiscal years. We can also bill you quarterly.
Additional financial support is available. If you'd like to figure out to best solution for you, email us at info@hue.life.
Otsego's Strategic Plan to Scale Long-Term Growth Amid Population Rise
Facing 47% population growth over the last 10 years, Otsego wanted to develop a plan that would grow with it. The city council and staff collaborated to create a strategic plan that outlined specific goals and steps crucial to reaching them.
While the first plan was developed in 2018, Otsego has worked with HueLife every two years since to revisit and refine the original plan, to ensure staff has updated goals to refer to.
In our November newsletter, we shared that HueLife customized an introductory course for Milwaukee Nonprofit Management Fund members in the spring, teaching a strategic planning framework and the leadership concepts necessary to lead strategic change. Participants learned to develop and communicate their vision, build successful plans, and inspire their team to move into meaningful action. As a result of this partnership, four Milwaukee area nonprofits that participated in the course will receive pro-bono strategic planning services to experience what they learned.
This month we would like to highlight Friendship Inc. The mission of Friendship Inc. is to provide a safe, healthy educational, social, and recreational environment for those and their families who are recovering from alcoholism and other drug addictions.
For nearly four decades the Friendship Club has served Milwaukee’s inner city population by providing a safe and healthy educational, social, and recreational setting for recovering people and their families.
Today, the Friendship Club continues to offer itself as a non-traditional aftercare model to the recovering community. Friendship Incorporated is dedicated to the efforts of providing social, recreational, and educational activities to the recovering alcoholic/addict, his/her family, friends, and others interested in the recovery process.
Have questions or suggestions for our HUE News? Either respond to this email or contact Flower Krutina, Director of Community Engagement atflower.krutina@hue.life
HueLife, 5775 Wayzata Blvd, Suite 700, St. Louis Park, Minnesota 55416
