SPACE on Ryder Farm
The Client
SPACE on Ryder Farm is a nonprofit residency program and organic farm located on the grounds of a 226-year-old family homestead in Putnam County, New York, just an hour north of New York City. SPACE’s mission is to create an environment to invigorate artists and innovators and their work, and to contribute to the preservation of one of the oldest organic family farms on the East Coast.
The Need
In 2020, SPACE on Ryder Farm engaged Tom O’Connor and Edie Demas (President, Edie Demas Group) to facilitate and develop the organization’s next Strategic Plan, which would set out the goals and strategies for SPACE for the next five years. SPACE had already engaged Ken Ebie (Founder and Principal, Ebie Strategies), to undertake an EDI assessment of SPACE, which would strongly inform the approach to and the development of Strategic Plan, and Ken also served as a member of the co-facilitation team.
The Process
Tom, Ken and Edie worked as a team to:
design an inclusive and representative process wherein multiple groups of stakeholders could be engaged at key points for input and feedback
facilitate a series of five sessions with a cross-sectional working group comprised of board, staff, and artists
define guiding principles, goals, strategies, tactics, and accountability questions based on input from stakeholders, and grounded in Tema Okun’s antidotes to white supremacy culture
write the full Strategic Plan in partnership with Board and Executive leadership
The Results
The resulting SPACE on Ryder Farm 2021 Strategic Plan was released in June 2021 and is available to view here. The outcome of this work was not exclusively the delivery of the Plan, but also the relationships and points of connection born of the collaborative process. The process devised by the consulting team provided a space for participating board members, staff, and artists to interact with each other in a new way and walk away with a deeper understanding of each other’s perspective and lived reality that will serve as a crucial foundation as the plan is brought to life.
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