Advisory & Evaluation Services
Thrivance provides structured advisory and evaluation services for agencies, nonprofits, developers, legal teams, and community leaders navigating projects that affect real people and real places.
Our approach is grounded in the principles of dignity-infused community engagement (DICE)—ensuring that processes, decisions, and outcomes respect the communities they impact.
Core Evaluations
Dignity Impact Assessment
When projects affect communities, the question is not only whether engagement occurred, but whether it honored the dignity of those involved.
The Thrivance Dignity Impact Assessment evaluates how policies, development projects, research initiatives, and programs may affect the dignity, agency, and well-being of the communities they touch.
This structured review identifies risks of extractive engagement, power imbalances, and unintended harm—while offering practical strategies to design processes that are more equitable, respectful, and effective.
Community Engagement Evaluation
Many organizations invest significant resources into public engagement—but few pause to assess whether those efforts were truly meaningful or effective.
Thrivance conducts independent Community Engagement Evaluations to help organizations understand the strengths, gaps, and outcomes of their engagement processes.
Our evaluations examine whether engagement activities were inclusive, transparent, responsive to community input, and structured in ways that foster trust.
Advisory Services
Stakeholder Climate Analysis
Complex projects often involve multiple stakeholders with competing interests, histories, and levels of trust in institutions.
A Stakeholder Climate Analysis helps organizations understand the social, political, and relational dynamics surrounding a project before decisions are made.
This analysis identifies key stakeholders, maps relationships and potential conflicts, and highlights opportunities for more productive engagement strategies.
Facilitation & Engagement Risk Assessment
Public meetings and engagement processes can either strengthen relationships with communities—or unintentionally deepen mistrust.
Thrivance offers Facilitation and Engagement Risk Assessments to help organizations prepare for complex conversations, particularly in contexts involving trauma, historical inequities, or strong community concerns.
This service evaluates meeting design, facilitation approaches, and communication strategies to identify risks and strengthen the conditions for respectful dialogue.
Litigation & Expert Advisory
Thrivance provides expert advisory support to legal teams working on cases involving land use decision-making, community engagement, planning processes, and public participation.
This work may involve reviewing engagement processes, analyzing stakeholder dynamics, synthesizing policy impacts, or providing expert insight into planning and community engagement practices.
Narrative Reframing Workshops
The language used to describe communities shapes how they are perceived, treated, and engaged.
Thrivance offers Narrative Reframing Workshops to help organizations critically examine how their language, data, and storytelling influence public understanding.
Participants explore how narratives emerge, how harmful framing can take hold, and how institutions can communicate in ways that honor dignity and complexity.
Custom Advisory
Thrivance frequently works with organizations and individuals facing complex community dynamics. If your situation does not fit neatly within one of the services above, we welcome inquiries about tailored advisory engagements.
Process Legitimacy Review
Public processes gain legitimacy not only from legal compliance but from how people experience those processes.
A Process Legitimacy Review examines whether a public or organizational decision-making process was transparent, fair, participatory, and aligned with deliberative values.
This review can help institutions understand how their processes are perceived and how those perceptions affect trust and community relationships.
Facilitation & Dialogue
Transformative Justice Facilitation
When conflict occurs within organizations or communities, traditional approaches often focus on assigning blame rather than restoring relationships.
Thrivance offers Transformative Justice Facilitation to support communities and organizations seeking constructive paths forward.
This process centers dignity, accountability, and collective problem-solving while creating opportunities for those affected to be heard.
Our facilitation helps participants explore underlying harms, identify shared responsibilities, and develop pathways for repair and transformation.
Experience Design
Civic Dialogue Design
Public dialogue requires thoughtful design in order to foster meaningful participation and respectful exchange.
Thrivance partners with organizations to design and facilitate civic dialogues that bring communities together around complex issues.
Our approach prioritizes dignity, curiosity, and constructive engagement—creating spaces where participants feel respected and heard.
Responsive Action
Community Listening Tours
Organizations often need structured opportunities to hear directly from the communities they serve.
Thrivance designs and facilitates Community Listening Tours that create accessible, welcoming spaces for dialogue.
Listening tours may involve a series of gatherings across neighborhoods or stakeholder groups, allowing institutions to hear diverse perspectives and build stronger relationships.
Community Conflict Mapping
Before attempting to resolve community conflicts, it is important to understand their origins, dynamics, and stakeholders.
Thrivance conducts Community Conflict Mapping to help organizations better understand tensions surrounding projects, policies, or programs.
This analysis explores the underlying concerns, histories, and structural factors shaping conflict—helping decision-makers approach challenges with greater insight and sensitivity.
Healing Circles & Community Repair Dialogues
Communities experiencing harm, conflict, or loss often need space for reflection and repair before productive collaboration can resume.
Thrivance facilitates Community Healing Circles designed to create respectful environments where participants can share experiences, acknowledge harm, and begin rebuilding trust.
These gatherings are carefully structured to prioritize dignity, emotional safety, and meaningful listening.
Healing Circles may be convened following community trauma, organizational conflict, or difficult public processes.
Dignity-Centered Event Design
The design of gatherings shapes how people experience participation, belonging, and voice.
Thrivance offers Dignity-Centered Convening Design for organizations hosting conferences, workshops, retreats, and public forums.
Our approach integrates facilitation strategy, spatial design, narrative framing, and participant experience to create gatherings that are thoughtful, inclusive, and memorable.
Civic Crisis Facilitation
Moments of civic crisis—whether sparked by violence, controversial decisions, public safety incidents, or deeply felt community grievances—can strain relationships between institutions and the communities they serve. In these moments, the quality of dialogue matters. Poorly handled engagement can deepen mistrust, while thoughtful facilitation can create space for accountability, understanding, and forward movement.
Thrivance provides Civic Crisis Facilitation to support communities and institutions navigating periods of heightened tension or uncertainty. Grounded in dignity-infused community engagement (DICE), this work focuses on creating spaces where participants can speak honestly, be heard with respect, and explore constructive paths forward.
Our role is not to control the narrative or resolve every disagreement. Rather, we help structure conversations in ways that acknowledge harm, surface community perspectives, and support responsible leadership during difficult moments.