CORE Archives
  • Archives
    • A CORE History & Timeline
    • The Way we Were (Old "About Us") >
      • CORE's Vision, Values & Promise
      • Our Theory of Change
      • CORE Structure and Governance
    • Newsletters/Blogs >
      • At the Crossroads with you and "U"
      • On the Home Front
      • Year-End Update & Invitation to Contribute
    • Videos/Poems/Multimedia >
      • A 2014 National Presentation about CORE
      • A CORE Limerick
    • People of CORE's History
    • 2016 Exploratory Journey
    • Harvests from Past Programs >
      • Circle of Transformational Practice >
        • Gathering Harvest >
          • 2016 sessions >
            • Your Story is Your Brand
            • Racial Justice in Our Lives and Our Work
            • Open Circle
            • Building Trust in Our Work
            • Social Justice and Mindfulness
            • Courage in our work
            • Eye Opening Models
            • Creating Intelligent Teams
            • Shared Leadership
            • What is the next level you seek in your consulting practice?
          • 2015 sessions >
            • Conversations we are hungering to have
            • Gratitude as transformational practice
            • How do we respond to sudden change?
            • More Eye-opening Models and Frameworks >
              • Intuitive Organizational Diagnostic
              • Using Chalk Talk in consulting
            • What does collaboration feel like in consulting practice?
            • Cross Cultural Insights and Reflections - July 2015
            • The Art of Transformational Consulting - June 2015
            • Conversations around equity and justice - May 2015
            • Exploring Asset-Based Community Development - April 2015
            • Eye-opening models and frameworks - March 2015 >
              • Asset-Based Community Development
              • Center for World-Changing Organizations
              • Global Dexterity
              • Mutual Aid Networks
            • How can we become the change we want to see in the world? - February 2015
            • How do we focus on the most important things? Or, "What conversations are we yearning for?" Part II. - January 2015
          • 2014 sessions >
            • What conversations are we yearning for? - December 2014
            • Toward a deeper consulting community - November 2014
            • More eye-opening frameworks and models - October 2014 >
              • Articulating Purpose
              • Zentangle
              • Participatory Flowcharting
              • The Turtle Approach to Measurement
              • Intuitive Organizational Diagnosis
              • Problem Abatement Model
              • Hot Action Model
            • Power differentials and how they affect our work - September 2014
            • Be the change: personal qualities of effective consultants - August 2014
            • Toward a Deeper Consulting Community/Focused Conversation Techniques - July 2014
            • Testing
            • More Eye-Opening Models and Frameworks - June 2014
            • Engaging in super-sensitive conversations - from theory to practice - May 2014
            • Toward a Consulting Community - April 2014
            • Eye-opening models and frameworks - March 2014
            • Engaging in super-sensitive conversations - Feb. 2014
          • 2013 sessions
          • 2012 sessions
          • 2011 sessions
          • 2010 sessions
      • Art for Change 2014
      • Harvest from 2014 CORE Community Gathering with Playback Milwaukee
      • Funder Confabs >
        • October 21st 2014 Funder Confab Harvest
        • July 24th 2014 Funder Confab Harvest
        • Funder Confab Group Agreements
        • Funder Confab Action Team Charter
      • CORE Action Café >
        • CORE Action Café announcement version
      • Match for Change >
        • MfC Round 3/2014 Participant Matches
        • Match for Change Flow Chart
        • Becoming a CORE Connector >
          • Connector Application
        • Eligibility >
          • For Organizations
        • Matchmaking Definitions >
          • Capacity Building
          • Consultant
          • Project
          • "Matching" grant
          • Organization
          • Ready
        • Organization Application Process >
          • Application Preview - Organizations
        • Consultant Application Process
        • Matchmaking Confidentiality
        • Assisted Contracting
        • Reporting Process
        • Definitions
        • Round 1 Participants
        • Round 1 Discoveries
    • Resources >
      • Tips on Hiring a Consultant
      • The Field of Transformational Change by Becca Krantz
      • Related Efforts
    • Testimonials
What is CORE?

CORE is a network of individuals and organizations who are passionate, visionary, on-the-ground change-makers willing to discover and share wisdom, generosity and joy in community. 

The CORE network includes people engaged in transformation towards equity and resilience in a wide variety of roles — from community-benefit organizations and grassroots leaders, to consultants, coaches and trainers, to individual philanthropists and institutional funders.

By bringing people together in new ways, we are expanding our collective capacity for community change-making.
To see the words to the limerick, click here.

How does CORE come together?

CORE is informed by experiences of organizational leadership, consulting, and funding in the nonprofit or community benefit sector, and is also an effort to transcend the limitations of each of these roles. CORE is not just a network of consultants improving their work with nonprofit organizations, though it is that. Neither is CORE just a new way to fund organizational capacity building. Like other efforts around the country to broker and support funded engagements between nonprofits and consultants, our matchmaking and matching funding fill a distinct set of needs. However, we approach all of our activities from a transformational set of values and methods.


What does CORE do?

CORE brings people together in a variety of ways, hosting space and time for people to reflect, build real relationships, and get creative. Because we embrace experimentation and emergence, our programs are evolving. They currently include:

CORE Action Caf
é
A creative, high-impact “Pro-Action Caf
é ,” a half day of collaborative reflection on real-time issues participants are facing. 

Consultants’ Circles
A monthly gathering of capacity-building providers for peer learning and relationship-building.

Match for Change
Trained volunteer Connectors meet with organizational and consultant applicants and work together to discern 2-3 well-fitting consultants for each organization. The program includes assisted contracting, where organizations are given $500 to provide a stipend to their selected consultant to craft a clear capacity-building plan, and matching funding, where organizations with a clear, realistic, and fundable plan are awarded matching funds up to $5000 for the capacity-building project.

Funder Confabs 
Regular gatherings for building funder community to strengthen the capacity of the social sector in Dane County.    
Where does CORE come from? 

Lead organizer Becca Krantz tells the story:
"Like many great ideas, CORE was prompted by frustration — mine, in particular. After years of working for social change in one way or another, I found myself in the role of lead staff person for a startup nonprofit organization. Like many executive directors, I had no idea how to do about 80% of my job. I needed help. Sometimes I got it, and sometimes I didn’t. And sometimes I was too mired in day-to-day urgency to step back and wonder whether I was being effective and how or where to find help to make my efforts more skillful and sustainable.

Later I became a consultant and a funder, two new roles I didn’t know how to do well. How, as an outside facilitator and leadership coach, could I tell if I was really making a difference for my clients?  And how, as a grant maker, could I make the best use of the money entrusted to me?

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CORE  explores and cultivates core practices for social transformation
to heal ourselves, our communities, and our world
. www.corechange.us  ​