A Changemaker’s Toolkit

A regular column to help change-makers envision, plan, and execute regenerative transformation.

We could not be more proud to once again link arms with The Fifth Estate, a leading sustainability publication, to advance the sustainability revolution within and beyond the built environment.

A Changemaker’s Toolkit will bring into contrast what doesn’t work and why; introduce a shared language for transformation; help you identify and vet ideas before dedicating your all to their implementation; help you master the building blocks of transformation and manipulate them into winning combinations; guide you to launch, scale, and exit from transformational ventures; and – very important – support you in resourcing yourself for the vital work of change-making.

Access the column

Elena Bondareva 7/8/24 Elena Bondareva 7/8/24

Why I professionalize changemaking

Elena Bondareva 3/7/24 Elena Bondareva 3/7/24

Identity crisis

In a word, what is your venture’s core identity? If I took a look, would I give the same answer?

All of us – and our ventures – are more than one thing. We are children and parents. Partners and friends and siblings and pet parents. Leaders and neighbors and engaged citizens and mentors and change-makers. On a perfect day, all of these identities come together in seamless synergy. On a good day, none drop, and we live up to a few. It is the bad day that’s the test. On that day, what are you, even if at the cost of all else? What must not drop?

Elena Bondareva 4/15/23 Elena Bondareva 4/15/23

How can we excel at transformation?

I have been sought out to do for change initiatives what Dr. Gregory House (played on the series House by Hugh Laurie) does for obscure medical conditions: diagnose. For two decades of research and practice, I have been interrogating why transformation fails so much more frequently than it succeeds, distilled into 6 reasons that only hold the keys to reversing the odds.