How do you engage in collaborations?

Meetings matter for social impact. To overcome the problems of our times, we need more soulful and resilient ways of collaborating. 

In Reimagining Collaboration, you’ll join a cohort of changemakers from around the world to practice holding space for multiple stories and perspectives while igniting more impactful meetings and collaborations.Register for our Next Program. Click Here Button

If you facilitate meetings, events, workshops or if you lead a team or organize with other people, this training is for you — especially if you find yourself pushing up against the edges of what seems possible. We'll help you harness your unique gifts as a facilitator and design collaborative spaces. You'll gain the clarity and confidence to make self-aware and intentional facilitation moves in accordance with your group’s needs and goals.

Too often, opportunities to spark transformative change are missed when our meetings or partnerships become draining because we can't manage conflict, make decisions, talk about power and privilege or even understand where another is coming from. This training will give you what you need to rise to the challenges of the present moment and support your group to live its purpose inclusively, authentically and joyfully. 

More than 400 individuals from dozens of countries have joined Spring’s facilitation programs. We’re proud to have had a tangible impact with leaders in environmental advocacy, peace and democracy, feminist organizing, Indigenous rights, digital rights, LGBTQ2S+ rights, and arts and culture (to name just a few).

Our Facilitation Programs
Meet the team
Remko Berkhout
Associate

Remko is part of our Facilitation program delivery team.

Strategist, Certified Integral Facilitator, collective intelligence for social transformation. Brings lightness and common sense to high-stakes settings. People power believer. Flyfishing addict, father of three lively little men. 

Home base

Lannach

Languages

Portuguese, English, Dutch, German

Proudest achievements

the here and now ;-) A recent work related achievement that I am proud of is a research documentary on conflict and equality, for which I facilitated a 1- year process of co-creation among researchers and activists across cultures, continents and backgrounds.

You became a Spring Associate because…

We need to raise the game for social and environmental justice. This community is a precious source from which to serve that mission in an environment of deep learning, collaboration, creativity and commitment.

Your leadership philosophy

I see so much potential for global justice – in people, in organizations, in society at large. Leadership is about enabling more of that potential to come out and shine.

Amis Boersma
Associate

Amis is part of our Facilitation and Coaching program teams.

Amis Agung Boersma is an Integral Master Coach™ and workshop facilitator with over 10 years of experience in the field of international activism and social change. She believes people tend to keep their best features hidden – sometimes even from themselves. Often passions, talents, desires and hopes for the future get buried under the overflowing to-do lists of daily life. As a coach, workshop facilitator and gatherer, Amis shines a light on the things that really matter to people, helping them connect to others as their truest and fullest selves.

Amis is Dutch with Indonesian roots and honored to call herself a true citizen of the world. She has lived in Amsterdam, Honolulu, Jakarta, Cartagena and Aruba. She holds a Master in Southeast Asian studies and loves studying languages. Besides languages she devours methods in which we humans can better and more deeply connect, such as Art of Hosting, Theory U and Thinking Environment. Amis loves to sing and dance, and spend time with her loved ones – preferably over a good cappuccino or cocktails.

Home base

Netherlands

Languages

English, Dutch and Indonesian

Proudest achievements

Following through with discipline and joy of my intention to become an Integral Master Coach™ and ridding myself of negative mental chatter.

You became a Spring Associate because…

I could not imagine a greater group of people to work together with to support social and climate justice leaders do their work in more resourceful and sustainable ways.

Your leadership philosophy

We each have such a unique combination of talents and strengths. Leadership, to me, is daring to tap into these yourself and building trust so that others feel supported to fully inhabit theirs as well.

Purity Kagwiria
Associate

Purity is part of our Facilitation and FIRE program delivery team.

Purity is feminist activist and a storyteller based in Nairobi Kenya and serves as the Director for With and For Girls Fund and Collective, the world’s only participatory fund by, and for adolescent girls. Purity previously served as the Executive Director of Akili Dada, a leadership incubator for girls and young women.

Purity is passionate about nurturing girls' freedom and agency, gender equality as well as enabling girls and young women to access spaces to advance themselves and their communities. She sees herself as a learning leader who is committed to cultivating authentic and empathetic leadership in herself and others. 

Purity has dedicated her life to ensuring that girls and young women, especially from poor backgrounds can have opportunities to dream and work towards the futures they hope to see.

Purity serves as an advisory member of East Africa Girls’ Brain Trust, has previously served as a founding advisory committee member of the FRIDA|The Young Feminist Fund and in early 2015, she was named as one of the 18 Phenomenal African Feminists to know and watch.  In 2016, she was named a finalist of the Most Influential Women in Governance and Business in Africa.

Home base

Nairobi

Languages

English, Swahili, Meru

Proudest achievements

Teaching girls on gender deconstruction and seeing the light bulbs when they connect the dots. Being a trailblazer in my family history in pursuit of education and being a feminist mom.

You became a Spring Associate because…

I have first hand experience of how transformative these programs are. I am passionate about girls’ and women's rights and social justice, and I know that it takes intentionality and resources to keep the work going. The more organizations understand what they can do to keep resourcing the work, the higher likelihood of their success.

Your leadership philosophy

A great leader does not lead alone, they lead with others. Cultivating and making space for others to lead with me is the best and easiest way to lead; everyone is able to step into their power and bring their best versions to the spaces we occupy together.

Budhita Kismadi
Associate

Budhita is part of our Facilitation program delivery team.

Budhsi is a vibrant, skilled and passionate facilitator, trainer and sustainable development professional with more than twenty years experience in program development and management in several international development organizations both in Indonesia and abroad.

She is a strong training and facilitation specialist and co-founder of INSPIRASI TANPA BATAS (previously INSPIRIT INNOVATION CIRCLES), or INSPIRIT, an innovative social enterprise established in 2002 and based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Budhsi has extensive experience in designing and facilitating interactive learning processes for various purposes, including decision-making, conflict management, training, and program planning and evaluation. 

She is committed to social and environmental justice and a firm believer in the power of individuals and communities to create and inspire sustainable change. In support of this philosophy, ensures that vibrant communicationasset-based thinking and appreciative inquiry is internalized and applied both on a personal and professional level.

Home base

Bekasi

Barbara Oliveira
Associate

Barbara is part of our Facilitation and Coaching program teams.

Founder of Ecosynergy, the Collaboration Lab and The Appreciation Project. Master Coach. Sustainable Development Facilitator and Mediator. Radical Humanist. Dancer. Singer. Poet. Tree hugger and Animal Whisperer.

Barbara Oliveira (PhD, MBA, LLM) is a facilitator, process designer, change agent and conflict transformation mediator, strategic negotiator and host of meaningful conversations. Barbara is passionate about human connection and the potential that multistakeholder participatory approaches offer to create innovative and inclusive solutions for sustainable development challenges. Throughout her career, she has added expertise in using systemic approaches such as Theory U, Appreciative Enquiry, Systemic Constellations, Deep Democracy and the Thinking Environment, in addition to Consensus Building and interest based negotiations/mediation and has developed sustainable leadership models for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and young women leaders. She co-founded the Collaboration Laboratory focused on fostering a culture of facilitation and participatory decision making in Brazil and founded Ecosynergy – Facilitation and Capacity Building for Sustainability, through which she facilitates, trains and coaches NGOs, businesses, government agencies, international organizations and academic bodies in their initiatives to become more integrated, collaborative and better engaged with their stakeholders, in Brazil and abroad.  Barbara is also a Master Certified Integral Coach™ and a public speaker in leadership, consensus building, and collaboration.

Home base

São Paulo

Languages

English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian

Proudest achievements

To have coached some of the most amazing social justice leaders around the world doing great work. To have launched the Appreciation Project (www.theappreciationproject.net).

You became a Spring Associate because…

Supporting social justice advocates be better leaders is a great way to contribute to a better planet.

Your leadership philosophy

Be present and witness beauty in yourself, in others and in the world. “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” Khalil Gibran.

Kenny Sajous-Georges
Associate

Kenny is part of our Coaching team.

Kenny is an Integral Master Coach™. He is passionate about fostering deep human connection, compassionate self-development, and nature. Born in Canada and based in Montreal, he has also lived in Costa Rica, Guatemala, and British-Columbia.

Home base

Montréal

Languages

French and English

Proudest achievements

Leaving the comfort of my government job to pursue a more fulfilling coaching and facilitation career. Feeling pain in response to the challenges and injustices of the world yet remaining optimistic and able to love fully.

Elizabeth Seja Min
Associate

Elizabeth is part of our Facilitation and FIRE program team.

Consultant, coach, facilitator. Executive director 4 times. Former orchestra conductor and record label chief. Thrives on creativity, action for humanity, arts, nature and great conversation.

Elizabeth Seja Min has helped hundreds communicate with heart, raise serious capital, collaborate, lead and develop people and the systems that bring out their best. She’s been at the helm of four organizations, built signature projects from the ground up, and guided leaders and teams in NGOs, foundations, social enterprises and companies. Elizabeth cut her teeth working with teams as a music director and conductor—founding and conducting a professional symphony orchestra, running a record label (two Grammy nominations!), and bringing unlikely partners together to create magnificent work on the stage. She met Ellen Sprenger while consulting in the world of women’s funds, and thus began a multiyear conversation about how whole people working in whole systems can, without a doubt, spring missions forward. Elizabeth is an associate with Spring Forward.

Home base

Oakland

Languages

English

Proudest achievements

Taking what I know as a musician and an activist to create learning paths and tools that my clients love to use and embody in their organizations, and uncovering the many-layered and multi-ethnic story of my birth and adopted parents after learning I was adopted at age 30 – a great story of discovery and geopolitics I hope to write.

You became a Spring Associate because…

I believe that global social movements are the way forward – and to stay the course we need to connect, know and support one another.

Your leadership philosophy

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. -June Jordan A leader is best when people barely know she exists. When her work is done, they will say: We did it ourselves. -Lao Tzu If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Ellen Sprenger
Co-Executive Officer

Ellen Sprenger is a strategist and advocate for social and climate justice. Since 2004, she has been the founder and CEO of Spring. She is a believer — especially in human potential and our collective ability to solve the problems of our time. She is a curious and creative optimist, an espresso enthusiast and avid meditator. Her areas of expertise include multi-actor conference facilitation, future-scenario development, financial innovation and resilience for justice organizations globally, and executive coaching. Previously she held several management positions at Oxfam-Novib and was the Executive Director of Mama Cash, a feminist foundation based in Amsterdam. Ellen holds a masters degree in Development Studies, an MBA from Erasmus University, and she is an Integral Master Coach™ and Certified Integral Facilitator™. She is a member of the Board of 350.org, a movement working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all. Ellen is from the Netherlands and Canada, and has lived in Tanzania, South Africa and the United States.

I founded Spring because...

Initially it was just me wanting to keep busy in a meaningful way after I came to Canada. But a few years in, I became more intentional about supporting emerging and experienced leaders. I chose the name Spring, and encouraged by my mentors and friends, took my own ‘leap of leadership’ to build this global team. We work directly with high-leverage individuals, organizations and movements who exist to make a difference. Spring is agile, and we have roots in the very same movements we support. We are scaling out, not up, and I believe that this way of working, with clients and deeply committed associates all over the world, creates exponential impact. We are a small but mighty powerful group of people ... and we have fun working together!

Home base

Toronto

Languages

English and Dutch

Proudest achievements

To always be ‘in development’, growing and waking up, and to resist the temptation of staying in my comfort zone. (Okay, I try.) And that I have been able to surround myself with people committed to doing the same.

Your leadership philosophy

It's about bringing together, supporting and learning from people driven by a deep sense of purpose, creativity and excellence. It’s about knowing enough to add value and know when to get out of the way. I believe this is how teams thrive, feel inspired and do their best work.

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“It’s an opportunity to take pragmatic steps to transcend habits and explore more effective facilitation.”

“Who knew that to be better a facilitating you first have to understand how to be your best centered self?”

“It’s ignited my passion to transform my engagement in group spaces.”

“This course can change your life, your vision about your ability to grow.”

“A great way to shape yourself and become a better leader.”

“I am not only a more confident facilitator I am also capable of bringing out the best in my co-facilitators.”

“This training helped me move from grassroots activism to conversations with funders, academics, and global advocates.”