Start with the future you want. Then ask how AI helps or hinders it.
I help clients build AI strategies that fit their vision of the future, AI policies that fit their values, and the practices that make both real.
Your system feels more uncertain than ever.
The people, relationships, and power dynamics you're trying to shift.
You need to see how AI is entangled in your system.
“As a facilitator and strategist, Charley skillfully pulls out diverse perspectives and comfortably navigates areas of strategic divergence. If you want help coalescing around a new future direction or change agenda, he is your guy!”
Their technology doesn't determine the future. Your imagination does.
Systems, not "tech solutions"
Hover to read more →Philanthropies and civil society groups feel pressured to develop "AI strategies" — and start with the technology instead of the system they're trying to change.
I help leaders flip that script: focus first on the future you want to create, then map backward to see how AI might help or hinder progress. The real question isn't "What's my AI strategy?" It's "How can I change my system?"
Collective sense-making
Hover to read more →In any system shaped by AI, funders, grantees, policymakers, and technologists bring different values, incentives, and frames of meaning.
I help organizations create spaces for translation across those differences — surface assumptions, build shared understanding, and enable real coordination and collective action.
Strategy as living practice
Hover to read more →Many organizations still treat strategy as a fixed plan — but in complex systems, conditions shift faster than any roadmap can adapt.
I help teams treat strategy as a living practice — adapting toward your future vision and in response to signals in your system, building trust, holding difference, and turning conflict into shared, continuous learning.
Relationships are the lever
Hover to read more →Traditional strategy processes overlook the relational and cultural foundations of systems, treating trust, power, and relationships as abstractions instead of the real levers of change.
I help organizations see how relationships shape behavior and alignment — revealing where systems are stuck and where shifts in culture or connection can unlock new possibilities.
How can I help?
Tell me a little about your system and what you're working through, and I'll be in touch.