ThirdWay Solutions

ThirdWay Solutions is part of a movement to ensure every organization in the public, private, nonprofit, policy and advocacy sectors reflects the gifts and voices inherent in America’s racial, gender and other diversity — especially in leadership and positions of power.

ThirdWay Solutions works with leaders across all sectors to overcome their organizations’ most intractable internal and external challenges in service of racial justice and social equity by providing customized strategy, coaching, and implementation support — and by envisioning focused initiatives to push change.

We believe in being B.O.L.L.D. in supporting our clients and partners.

  • Be the change: We believe change starts from within. Leaders should be willing to question everything, including their own biases, tendencies and past decisions.
  • Operate with integrity: We believe leaders should align values with actions, even when it is uncomfortable. Achieving equity means confronting uncomfortable truths about racism, sexism, and other -isms.
  • Listen and learn: We believe people and organizations only grow if they listen to feedback and embrace change.
  • Laugh and connect: We think work should be fun and joyful. We build relationships based on trust, authenticity, and personal connection across differences.
  • Do: We get things done and help teams move past admiring problems to solving them. We help organizations set bold goals, create roadmaps and remove barriers.

Across diverse sectors, we support leaders focused on one and/or more of the following:

  • The 20% Project: Putting the 20% of students, families, employees and/or communities who have been the most marginalized at the core of innovative, cross-functional solutions.
  • ABAR Organizations: Envisioning and defining, in concrete and actionable ways, what it means to be an anti-biased, anti-racist (ABAR) organization, and enacting the hard changes, from people to policies and strategy, to make concrete progress.
  • The Discipline Revolution Project: Radically rethinking how to build psychologically, emotionally, and physically safe cultures and decriminalizing how we handle incidents, conflict, and struggle in schools.
  • Collective Action: Bringing together local leaders — across “types” of schools, departments, and organizations of all kinds — to define and solve issues related to equity and marginalized young people.

Our team puts the 20% of students and communities society has failed the most at the center of design and transformation efforts. In both nonprofit and for-profit companies, we help organizations define their ABAR vision and operating principles — and pull them through all the core elements of their work. We create virtual and in-person collaboratives focused on decriminalizing the way we think about young people.

Since launching, we have worked in 25 districts and 6 states, impacting approximately 2,000 schools and over 3 million students. We have provided services to dozens of non-school clients from nonprofits to philanthropies, advocacy organizations and corporations across the country. Our team’s expertise in leading and coaching leaders to realize transformational change makes us unique. We are not traditional consultants. We are catalysts, elbow partners, capacity-builders, and — ultimately — focused on making a tangible impact on every organization we support.