2025 marked 25 years of business for The Improve Group. In that time, there have been many changes to our organization and in the world! 2025 has been a challenging year for many of us, in many areas of our lives. However, our mission to help organizations make the most of complexity and have a meaningful, sustained impact has stayed the same. Our values have guided us through changes to the world, our sector, and the clients and communities we work with. So, as we reflect on 2025, we want to celebrate and express our appreciation for what we learned, people we worked with, and opportunities we had to collaborate as an organization. Here are 25 highlights, reflections, and appreciations from our staff as we look back on the year:
- We flexed our skills on 54 different projects this year, including evaluations, needs assessments, strategic planning, community engagement, and group facilitation.
- We finished work on 21 projects with foundations, nonprofits, and government agencies.
- We collaborated with numerous partners on project work to advance our impact through subject matter and community expertise. In one exciting example, we are partnering with KaeJae Johnson and the Residents of Color Collective (ROCC) to support the coordination and development of Community Resource Centers in Dakota County.
- We heard from clients that we were skilled at inclusive engagement, provided evidence of impact, and created high-quality deliverables in short timelines.
- We reached 100% co-op participation – now every employee at IG is a worker-owner!
- We learned how to be flexible in a shifting funding environment nationally and in Minnesota.
- Our organization had many opportunities to practice collaborative decision-making, like finalizing our budget for the upcoming year.
- Our staff has appreciation for our time-off structure to help us rest and do our best work when we’re together.
- We supported clients in several new topic areas, like supporting families and babies affected by substance use during pregnancy, and increasing the accessibility of energy efficiency and clean energy to small businesses in disadvantaged communities.
- We dove into internal conversations about the structure of our organization and how it can work for everyone, including surveying staff on how we can support neurodiversity and further inclusion.
- We appreciate the opportunity to work with new clients this year, like Towerside Innovation District and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education.
- We welcomed three new IGers: Spotless Amponsah, Marcus Chaffee, and Katie Twyman-Metzger!
- We’re thankful for our organization’s resilience, proactiveness, and adaptability.
- Based on project experience, we developed guidance documents on how to meaningfully and equitably engage Tribes while centering their sovereignty. This includes considerations for our clients to ensure thoughtful collaboration with Tribal communities.
- Staff members had the opportunity to learn about evaluation and network by attending the American Evaluation Association conference.
- We have deep appreciation for the community members who participate in our projects – you make our work possible!
- We constantly learned from each other in our project teams, consultant shares meetings, and through organization-wide Lunch and Learns.
- We ran our business together and navigated challenging decisions as a team of smart, creative, and flexible co-owners.
- We completed the transition to virtual file storage, helping our teams collaborate more effectively.
- The organization began working on our strategic plan to guide the future of IG amid a continually changing landscape.
- We embraced challenging moments as an opportunity to reflect and learn.
- Staff balanced work with raising young families—and several team members are expecting babies in 2026!
- We had many advancements this year, which celebrate staff members learning more and growing their skills.
- IGers’ creativity brought many moments of joy this year, from crochet animals to collaborative weaving (pictured below) to graphic recording!
- And lastly, we appreciate everyone in our IG “family”: staff, clients, partners, community members, and everyone else who contributes to the work we do.
