The Story

Sticky Notes grew out of a pattern I saw repeatedly throughout my career: organizations are rarely short on ideas.

The ideas are everywhere - on whiteboards, in strategic plans, buried in meeting notes, and yes, written on sticky notes.

The harder part is deciding which ideas matter, bringing people around them, and turning them into meaningful action.

I’ve spent nearly 20 years working in and leading associations, professional societies, and mission-driven organizations. Along the way, I’ve served as a CEO, senior association executive, workforce advocate, strategist, and community builder. I’ve worked alongside Boards and volunteers, led teams through significant change, developed new revenue and education programs, grown membership and engagement, and helped organizations navigate moments when the old way of doing things simply wasn’t enough.

But the throughline has always been people.

I believe organizations built around people have an extraordinary opportunity, and responsibility, to create places where individuals feel seen, valued, connected, and part of something larger than themselves.

That work is becoming harder.

Technology is changing how people find information. Social media has changed how communities form. Expectations around membership, volunteering, leadership, learning, and events continue to evolve. AI is accelerating nearly everything. And in a world where connection has never been easier technologically, genuine belonging can still feel increasingly difficult to find.

Sticky Notes exists to help organizations respond to that reality.

Through strategic advisory work, member journey and community audits, interim and fractional executive leadership, speaking, and facilitation, we help organizations challenge assumptions, uncover friction, strengthen community, and move good ideas into action.

And through Associations Disrupted, we are widening the conversation - bringing insights from psychology, sociology, technology, research, business, and other fields into the association and nonprofit space to ask better questions about how organizations built around people should evolve.

We don’t believe in innovation for innovation’s sake.

We believe in understanding people better, asking harder questions, and building organizations people genuinely want to be part of.

That’s the work. Those are the sticky notes worth acting on.