Empathic Strategy and Project Management

Surpassing Distinction specializes in partnering with Colorado-based organizations in the education, public, and nonprofit sectors. Our team offers a spectrum of services based on the challenge level. The diagram below showcases how the level of work directly corresponds to the level of the challenge.

Our Work

Our Mission is to make a lasting, positive impact in addressing complex systems of oppression by partnering with organizations who are committed to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Our Vision is to be a globally-recognized organization known to bring lasting, positive change in communities by cultivating empathic relationships between public education, public, nonprofit, and for-profit partners.

Surpassing Distinction is uniquely positioned to partner with your organization because of our specialized skills in data, research, pk-12 public education, nonprofit management, collective impact, project management, strategic management, engagement through dialectical models, and our vast network of subject-matter experts across multiple sectors and knowledge domains.

Current Work

Our current work is taken directly from the headlines. Has recent news about school closures due to population shifts have you wondering, "Is there another way?" At Surpassing Distinction, we think there is.

We have conceptualized an innovative solution to support school districts in managing declining enrollment due to Colorado population shifts. In practice, the concept will apply an evidence-based, community impact model that lifts community voice and funnels resources into affected communities to mitigate the negative impacts of the shifts, which typically result in school closures and rapid community decline.

We are looking for executive-level thought partners from education-centered nonprofits, school districts, and foundations. We hope that the concept can be improved, garner support, and eventually receive funds to implement a proof of concept in just one school community. The issues our communities are facing across the state are urgent. So, let's grab a coffee to briefly talk about the issues and what is needed to move the work forward, or please forward this to leaders who should be a part of this conversation.

Below are endorsements we have already received in support of us bringing this issue to our state leaders. Please join them by contacting us to discuss more about this concept.

Data-informed decision-making is one of our operational tenets. To illustrate how declining enrollment is a state-wide issue, we have created an interactive dashboard. Click the image below to interact with a heat map of Colorado population shifts of 5-19 year-olds, overlaid with school district boundaries (second tab).