Challenge

Urban Manufacturing Alliance had spent a decade strengthening local manufacturing ecosystems, connecting production with community well-being. As the organization prepared to reintroduce itself as Mechanism, it faced an essential task: ensuring that its board directors were aligned with the mission and vision that had emerged from the leadership foresight process in Hudson.

The Co-Directors had already completed extensive foresight work with Love & Order that generated a new strategic framework and identity for Mechanism’s next ten years. The board directors, however, had not yet shared that experience. Before launching publicly, the organization needed its board to connect with the future it was building — to understand not only what was changing, but why.

The September retreat in Cincinnati was designed as that bridge. It would bring the board directors into the creative and strategic journey, aligning imagination with governance and ensuring that purpose, accountability, and direction were shared across the organization.

Approach

Love & Order, in collaboration with Ellen Shepard of Community Allies, co-designed and facilitated the two-day board retreat. The engagement combined foresight, narrative facilitation, and governance alignment to create the conditions for renewal.

To prepare participants, Love & Order developed a Creative Futures pre-read and presentation that distilled frameworks from the Hudson foresight sessions, including Mutual Aid, Just Transition, and Dark Matter Infrastructure. The pre-read also introduced the evaluators that would guide reflection and decision-making: justice centered transformation, place rooted sufficiency, participatory imagination, and Protopian adaptability.

Day One centered on the Creative Futures session, led by Love & Order. The session opened with Turn Back the Clock, a reflective exercise that surfaced personal experiences of justice, belonging, and purpose, setting a tone of trust and authenticity. The Creative Futures presentation and workshop then walked board directors through the foresight work that had produced Mechanism’s new mission and vision, inviting them to explore how those ideas connected to governance, accountability, and leadership.

Within that session, participants engaged in Horizon Mapping, linking immediate priorities to long-term aspirations, and concluded with A Wish for Future Generations, a reflective exercise that invited each person to describe the world they hoped Mechanism’s work would help make possible.

Ellen Shepard facilitated the afternoon and Day Two, guiding operational and governance conversations that built on the foresight work. Love & Order remained present to maintain continuity of tone and to sustain the heart-centered approach throughout. Together, the facilitation balanced imagination and implementation, connecting purpose to practical governance.

Across two days, the tone shifted from curiosity to conviction, as board directors recognized their shared role in shaping Mechanism’s next decade.

Outcome

By the end of the retreat, the board spoke with clarity and confidence about Mechanism’s direction. The mission and vision crafted through the earlier foresight process became the shared anchor for decision-making and long-term strategy.

Key outcomes included:

• Shared understanding of identity and intent, affirming Mechanism’s commitment to justice, care, and regeneration.

• Clarity of role between governance and leadership, strengthening accountability and trust.

• Momentum for activation, with committees forming to carry forward strategic priorities identified in the retreat.

Board directors described feeling reconnected to purpose and energized for the work ahead. One participant called the process “rejuvenating,” while others highlighted the value of linking vision with operational clarity.

In post-retreat conversations, the Co-Executive Director of Mechanism reflected that the sessions provided a map through the maze, offering both direction and renewed unity across the organization. In a follow-up note, she shared that one-on-one conversations confirmed renewed energy and a clear mandate to move boldly forward, and expressed gratitude to both facilitators for guiding the board through a period of transformation.

Reflection

The Mechanism board retreat illustrated how foresight can become a governance practice, not just a tool for strategy but a way to bring imagination, integrity, and structure into leadership.

By engaging the board directors in the story of Mechanism’s transformation, the retreat turned abstract vision into shared responsibility. The process reaffirmed a principle central to Love & Order’s work: that alignment emerges naturally when insight, foresight, and oversight move in concert.

Mechanism’s evolution shows what becomes possible when imagination is made actionable and leadership becomes collective. The retreat marked the moment a new identity became a shared commitment, and a future once envisioned became a future owned.