OUR SERVICES

Photo by Don Bowden from AAACC's Season of Black Art Symposium, produced by SFBATCO & TREE OF CHANGE.

Our services build on over five decades of collective experience and over five years of collaborative consulting in the fields of advocacy, youth development, service learning, leadership development, executive coaching, health equity, arts and culture curation and administration, community and youth media, and peer-to-peer praxis / organizing / education.

Through application with cultural centers, arts institutions, community journalists and housing organizers, social service non-profits, health equity foundations, and unions, we have honed and refined our two introductory services:

ABOUT TREE OF CHANGE

Tree of Change is a dynamic, adaptive praxis by Crystal Mason & Jason Wyman for organizational and cultural transformation. We use the metaphor / symbol / archetype of a tree to express how we tend to holistic, liberatory growth and change.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to cultivate a sense of belonging and ownership through fostering stakeholder and community engagement towards facing, naming, and making change because we believe We All have the experience & expertise to do so.

Workshops for Change

What is the future you are dreaming about for yourself, your organization, the world?

Over two and a half hours, we tend to (brave enough) space in ways that cultivate belonging and facilitate Power-With around liberatory topics. This is perfect for groups, organizations, teams, small businesses, or foundations seeking ways to open conversation around critical issues like abolition, equity, and queerness.

Photo by Jason Wyman at AAACC Youth Dreaming Workshop.

Who is the AUDIENCE for Workshops for Change?

Facilitators, trainers, organizers, educators, and teaching artists,

who want additional tactics, tools, activities, exercises, and frameworks they can apply to their practice

Managers, directors, board members, and stakeholders,

who are responsible for managing groups of people and are looking for more inclusive ways of tending to meetings

Organizations, businesses, groups, and teams,

looking for engaging ways to get to know one another more deeply that also offer tactics, activities, and resources they can use and apply immediately.

All our workshops are designed for groups of 25 or less with two facilitators. We can accommodate larger groups for an additional cost of one facilitator per 12 additional people.

Overview of Workshops for Change

GOAL

The main goal of Workshops for Change is to gather individuals together to personally and collectively explore topics vital to our liberation from unjust, inequitable systems meant to shame, punish, and oppress. They include space for dreaming (aka being with one's thoughts to imagine what's possible), time for introspection, and peer exchange that yields collective wisdom and pluralistic meaning-making.

LOGISTICS

This is a two month engagement. All Tree of Change Workshops unfold over two and a half hours. We hold space for about 2 hours of content with casual arrivals and departures as a way to cultivate and tend to informal relationship building. Workshops are facilitated virtually or in person (in San Francisco for no additional; elsewhere for additional cost including travel.)

TAKE AWAYS

● A deeper understanding of one’s self and each other around a topic critical to our liberation from unjust, inequitable systems meant to shame, punish, and oppress; ● All lesson and activity plans, which you can use, adapt, and remix; ● Surveys and responses; and ● A resource list, including links to additional tools and references.

TIMELINE

● Intake Call ● Contract Signing & Payment One ● Planning Meeting One - 1.5 hours (Working Agreements, Topic Refinement, Audience Articulation, Logistics Confirmation [e.g. date, location, technology, materials, etc.]) ● Planning Meeting Two - 1 hour (Agenda Review, Attendance Update, Troubleshooting & Problem Solving, Final Logistics) ● Workshop - 2.5 Hours ● Payment Two ● Debrief Meeting (Reflection, Survey Results Review, Agenda & Resource List Handoff)

COST: $5000 (for up to 25 people)

What Workshop for Change TOPICS do you offer?

What Comes After Abolition

This workshop draws from our work gathering Black, Indigenous, brown, immigrant, queer, nonbinary, urban, and rural youth, adults, and elders in conversation and co-creation asking, “What might we need after abolition?” We hold space for dreaming, give prompts for creation, and invite all to share their dreams of a future beyond punishment and oppression.

Gathering Together, the Tree of Change Way

This workshop draws on decades of experience gathering, co-creating, and organizing across differences in ways that foster safe and brave (enough) space to change. We share tactics, tools, and resources (e.g. Solidarity Statements, Guides to Time and Space, Ethnographic Introductions) through experiential learning, where all grapple with how to translate them to their own communities, groups, and cultures.

Queering Your Story for a New World

This workshop draws from decades of living out queer lives and telling our queer stories to diverse audiences, both queer and non queer. We facilitate generative exercises that ask bold questions of ourselves and each other as a way to find new pathways and new narratives for a new world.

What do OTHERS say about Workshops for Change?

Hannah Dworkin, SF Opera

"Crystal Mason and Jason Wyman are extremely talented in what they do. They quickly create a welcoming, safe community, and they skillfully guide participants through a process of discovery that reaches even the most hesitant participants. I have personally taken several of their workshops and I have found them transformational."

Survey Respondent, Adaptive Culture Tending Workshop for AAACC

"These workshops were amazing and a must for anyone looking to develop a community-centered project. Thank you Crystal and Jason for hosting a thoughtful, informative, and engaging series of workshops."

Priya Prabhakar, People Power Media

"Truly some of the best & gayest cultural workers & comrades in the game!"

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Stakeholder Engagement

Who do you need to hear from in order to change and grow? And what do you need to talk about?

Using our “Dreaming & Listening Session” model, we work with organizations, associations, businesses, clubs, unions, foundations, or socially-conscious enterprises to co-design culturally-specific gatherings for their stakeholders that help them face, name, and make change over an eight to ten month timeline.

Photo by Don Bowden of Traci Bartlow at AAACC Stakeholder Dinner.

Who is the AUDIENCE for Stakeholder Engagement?

Stakeholder Engagement is for organizations, businesses, arts / culture / media centers, foundations, groups, associations, networks, movements who:

Want to engage their communities in meaningful conversations, which generate pluralistic understanding (e.g. members, constituencies, audiences, customers, clients, donors, etc.) OR

Desire innovative, creative approaches that aid you in better communicating who you want, need, or desire to be (e.g. strategic planning, program development, organizational impact, curatorial frameworks and processes, pedagogies and praxis, etc.) OR

Need to change & desire to find new pathways & perspectives that emerge from collectivity (e.g. budget increases or cuts, leadership transitions, how to address burnout, organizational restructuring, etc.)

Overview of Stakeholder Engagement

GOAL

The main goal of Stakeholder Engagement is to foster and deepen relationships between people served, workers, decision-makers, funders, and/or community (aka stakeholders) for emergent solutions to vexing organizational problems or questions that, ultimately, require change, growth, or transformation.

LOGISTICS

This is an EIGHT TO TEN MONTH engagement that requires the participation of a Design Team over SIX Design Sessions to co-create a series of THREE Dreaming & Listening Sessions that will engage up to 75 Stakeholders from diverse communities in deep inquiry.

OUTCOMES

● A Design Team that includes between two to six staff members who inform and make crucial decisions that aid in culturally-specific adaptation of program administration (professional development); ● Better understanding and knowledge about their stakeholders and their wants, needs, desires, and ideas (stakeholder engagement); ● Personal stories that form emerging, collective narratives, which can be used to guide business plans, strategic planning, grant writing and fundraising, impact storytelling, stakeholder / investor relations, and marketing and communications (narrative development); ● A standardized and adaptable agenda for facilitating future Dreaming and Listening Sessions, which your staff can freely use (program development); ● A visually impactful Final Report summarizing how your organization, business, etc. Listens for Change, what we heard throughout the entire process, pull quotes from Stakeholders addressing the central topic, summaries of surveys, and recommendations for further examining the central topic (impact storytelling).

TIMELINE

● Intake Call ● Contract Drafted ● Contract & Working Agreement Negotiation ● Contract Signed ● First Payment ● Design Meeting 1 ● 3 Two-on-Ones with Stakeholders ● Design Meeting 2 ● Design Meeting 3 ● Second Payment ● 3 Dreaming & Listening Sessions ● Design Meeting 4 ● 3 Two-on-Ones with Stakeholders ● Design Meeting 5 ● Third Payment ● Final Presentation Draft ● Design Meeting 6 ● Final Payment ● Final Presentation

COST: $100,000

CASE STUDY: Code Tenderloin

What

A Strategic Plan with a new mission, vision, values, branches of work, and short and long-term outcomes to guide the organization as it transitioned from a fiscally-sponsored project to its own 501(c)3. It concluded with a formal presentation by Code Tenderloin staff to stakeholders.

Who

We were hired by Executive Director Donna Hilliard and Development Director Maria Judice to co-design with them a process to engage staff at all levels of the organization (most of who are also former participants) in a strategic planning process.

How

Fall 2023 - Initial Proposal development outlining funding available, outcomes desired, and target stakeholder groups to engage. Winter 2024 - Finalization of contract, including timeline of activities, working agreements, and best formats for gathering Code Tenderloin staff. Spring-Summer 2024 - Completion of 6 workshops with Code Tenderloin Staff to aid in reexamining and rearticulating Code Tenderloin's mission, vision, values, branches of work, and outcomes. Fall 2024 - Handed over final Strategic Plan to Code Tenderloin. Presentation by Code Tenderloin staff to stakeholders on their new strategic plan.

Outcomes

● Two Code Tenderloin Team Members who contributed to the design of the Strategic Planning process to ensure it worked for all staff within the organization. ● Team of at least 12 Code Tenderloin staff who contributed to the Strategic Plan. ● A Strategic Plan Guiding Document that aids the organization in making the transition from fiscally sponsored to its own 501(c)3. ● Activities (including Naming Resistance, The Grid, Spheres of Change) that staff can use, adapt, and share to aid them in examining conflict, values, and purpose. ● A final presentation to stakeholders by Code Tenderloin Staff.

LINK to Final Presentation

The Final Presentation was done on Zoom on October 25, 2024. It was recorded, so that it could be shared with funders, donors, and community members. We have included it on our website to showcase the results of our work.

CASE STUDY: African American Art & Culture Complex

What

Social media-ready, visual Impact Report documenting five years of investment into Black Artists, Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Community Members by the African American Arts & Culture Complex, including an organizationally-informed impact framework, culturally-specific impact maps, and recommendations for distribution.

Who

We were hired by Co-Executive Directors Melorra and Melonie Green to interview at least 20 Black Artists, Creatives, Entrepreneurs, or Community Members who received support from the African American Art & Culture Complex between 2020 to 2025. The funding for this work came from the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development for Capacity Building activities. The audience for the Final Impact Report is communities served by the AAACC, funders of the AAACC, AAACC staff, and San Franciscans, advocates, researchers, and academicians dedicated to the study, preservation, and promulgation of Black Art, History, Culture, and Community.

How

FOUNDATIONAL WORK Spring 2023 - Began Dreaming & Listening with AAACC staff, consultants, and stakeholders as a way to establish and ground relationships. February 2024 - Co-produced Season of Black Arts Symposium, which included a the launch of the #WeAreBlackDreams Archive (a prototype participatory action research project), a hour-long presentation on the legacy and significance of the AAACC to Black Artists, Creatives, and Community Members, and a Fashion Show curated by Realization Grant Awardee Mario B Productions. FY2024-2025 WORK PLAN Fall 2024 to Winter 2025 - Executive Coaching with Melorra Green and Design Sessions with AAACC Staff & Consultants to co-create interview protocols, identify interviewees, and ensure cultural specificity to the entire project. Spring 2025 - Conducted 21 Interviews with Black Artist, Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Community Members as outlined by our co-created Interview Protocols & Outreach List. Continued Executive Coaching with Melorra to refine Final Report format, identify additional assets, answer clarifying questions, and ensure alignment to organizational vision. May-June 2025 - Drafted Final Report. Identified a organizationally-specific Impact Framework. Fact checked all pull quotes and data included in Final Report. Continued Executive Coaching with Melorra Green to ensure Final Report was reflective of AAACC's mission, vision, and values. Fall 2025 - The AAACC Impact Report forms the crux of our FY2025-2026 work with the AAACC in co-creating an Organizational Culture Handbook and reimagining and rearticulating the AAACC Mission, Vision, Values, and Organizational Structure through a Strategic Planning Process.

Outcomes

● A Design Team that helped inform Interview Protocols & Outreach. ● 21 Impact Interviews, including notes and transcripts ● An Organizationally-Specific Impact Framework with Six Impact Maps documenting how the AAACC makes Relational, Material, Social, Aspirational, Organizational, and Place impacts ● A Social Media-ready Impact Report with a detailed written report, which includes expanded Impact Maps, pull quotes, and recommendations for distribution

LINK to Final Impact Report

NOTE: Currently, the AAACC Final Impact Report exists within a Google Photo Album until it is more formally added to the AAACC website, which is currently undergoing a redesign.

CASE STUDY: SF Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition

What

Easily distributable, multi-format, artist-centered, member-engaged zines that advance the solutions and values of the San Francisco Citywide People's Plan for Housing from the Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition. Formats included 4:5 and 1:1 for social media and 11:17 printed zines and posters.

Who

We were hired by People Power Media, who manages the member-based San Francisco Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition, to work with member organizations and two San Francisco Bay Area artists to tell impactful, visual stories about SF REP's solutions and values for housing justice.

How

FOUNDATIONAL WORK Spring 2022 - Worked with People Power Media to reexamine and rewrite their mission, vision, and values to better reflect their work with the SF Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition. Fall 2022 - Website review for People Power Media to align their website structure and language to better reflect the new mission, vision, and values. Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 - Worked with People Power Media organizers to articulate their organizing and political education praxis that advances their mission, vision, and values through their work with SF Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition. ZINE CONTRACT Fall 2023 - Worked with People Power Media to outline a process of engagement for two artists and the member organizations of SF Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition. Paid specific attention to how to set up the process and final zines in ways that centered accessibility and language justice. January 2024 - Onboarded artists for the Zine project. March to July 2024 - Facilitated Design & Story Sessions between artists and People Power Media. Supported artist-engagement between artists and SF REP member organizations. Problem solved relational, technical, design, and story challenges. August 2024 - Finished designs for multiple formats and submitted to SF REP Coalition. November 2024 - Zine published by SF REP Coalition online.

Outcomes

● Deeper understanding of roles and responsibilities of artists, member organizations, and coalition organizers in telling complex, visually compelling, fact-based stories ● Two zines in multiple digital and print formats that were designed to make editing text into different languages easy. ● Member organizations and members of those organizations feeling heard and seen by SF REP Coalition in the media used for organizing ● A process for further artist-centered, member-engaged media projects

LINK to SF Race & Equity in All Planning Zines

What do OTHERS say about Stakeholder Engagement?

Melorra Green, Curator | AI Strategist | Former Co-Executive Director, AAACC

"Over two years, Crystal and Jason led the African American Art & Culture Complex (AAACC) through a transformative body of work that centered care, clarity, and community. They met us where we were—no matter who was on our team or what skillsets we had. They became full partners in advancing our Opulence of Blackness commitment, offering thought partnership, implementation support, documentation, and accountability across every step of the process. Their impact lives far beyond deliverables—it lives in people, processes, and possibilities."

Donna Hilliard, Code Tenderloin

"Tree of Change is an extraordinary partner. Crystal Mason and Jason lead a culture-tending practice that is healing-centered and rigorously inclusive, inviting people to show up fully and do their best work. They help us surface community wisdom, navigate hard conversations with care, and turn insight into action. The result is deeper trust, stronger programs, and a renewed sense of possibility for our staff, participants, and partners."

Jeantelle Laberinto & Priya Prabhakar, People Power Media

"Working with Jason and Crystal is a gift. They both approach this work with deep intentionality, clear communication, and a rootedness in relationality and change. They come with decades worth of experience using art and creativity as a tool of harnessing people power, which supported us in structuring and articulating our vision at People Power Media in conversation with our work in policy, advocacy, and media production."

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Stakeholder Engagement

CASE STUDIES