The next Coalition Catalyst™ online course begins January 26, 2026!

Leadership

Coalition Engagement Skill #6: Demonstrate energy and enthusiasm

Engaging coalitions, partnerships, workgroups and teams is particularly challenging right now. Most meetings are still occurring virtually and “zoom” fatigue is real. When only a few people show their video and the energy is low, it is really difficult to effectively engage participants. As a coalition leader, you are responsible for modeling and encouraging positive […]

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Coalition Engagement Skill #5: Facilitate conversations and connections

One of the most important roles for a coalition leader to play is that of a “master facilitator.” Although you may think you need to be the one to “do” everything, if you are really going to be able to achieve more together than you can on your own, facilitate conversations and connections. Join me

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Coalition Engagement Skill #4: Clarify meaningful roles and responsibilities

Do you know what only you can do as a coalition leader? Do your coalition members know their roles and how they “fit” in the coalition? As a coalition leader, it is easy to “assume” that everyone knows what role(s) they are playing as part of the coalition. You may also have different expectations for

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Learning from a successful coalition leader

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is ‘What are you doing for others?’ Martin Luther King Jr. As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday today, we can learn a lot about coalition building from him and his work. As a leader, he knew how to build coalitions, engage his members and interacted positively with

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Partnership Pitfall #9: Letting the loudest voices get their way

One of the best ways to energize your coalition toward collective action is to identify passionate champions who can provide leadership, inspiration and energy to accomplish the collective goals and objectives. Sometimes, these passionate champions can be very loud and insistent on their way. If “their way” aligns well with the coalition interest overall, that

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Partnership Pitfall #7: Overselling and Under delivering

As a coalition, it can be easy to be overcommitted (which we talked about as our Partnership Pitfall #2). A related pitfall happens when we communicate to our partners and stakeholders that we can do more than we can actually do. In our enthusiasm (and sometimes our people-pleasing tendencies), we can communicate unrealistic expectations and

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Partnership Pitfall #5: Self interest vs. Group Interest

Happy Thanksgiving! This week’s post can apply to our coalition work and our family dynamics as well. 🙂 Coalition building is all about finding “win-win” opportunities for your coalition members and the coalition’s purpose. In order to attract organizations to be part of a coalition, there need to be clear benefits for each organization to

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Partnership Pitfall #4: Unclear roles and responsibilities

Last week, we focused on the partnership pitfall of unrealistic expectations for coalition members. As you reflected on the types of roles that may be unrealistic, you may have realized that you also are experiencing the next “partnership pitfall” related to unclear roles and responsibilities. As a coalition leader, it is easy to “assume” that

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10 Partnership Pitfalls

When leading coalitions and partnerships, sometimes getting groups of people to work together happens fairly easily and other times it seems impossible. Since our coalitions and partnerships involve passionate people with different perspectives and personalities working together, there are many potential barriers, obstacles or challenges that may prevent us successfully working together. As a coalition

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