Two Days to a Values-Driven Culture : The Trevor Project Culture Canvas Retreat

The Client

The Trevor Project is the world’s largest suicide prevention and mental health organization for LGBTQ young people. With over 25 years of service, their work is critical, heart-driven, and often high-intensity. In 2023, The Trevor Project’s Clinical Operations team was navigating growth, transitions, and shifting leadership, and needed to strengthen alignment around culture, vision, and success.

The Challenge

Creating Cohesion Across a Growing, Evolving Team. The Clinical Operations department spans eight diverse sub-teams. With new leaders, shifting team dynamics, and evolving service delivery needs, the organization identified a gap: they needed a stronger sense of shared culture and purpose. Their goals were to :

• Rebuild trust after a period of change and rapid growth.
• Define what success looks like across roles and teams.
• Establish values-aligned ways of working, from meetings and decisions to communication & accountability.
• Spark ownership, clarity, and connection across the vertical.

The Inbo Approach

Three Days of Intentional Design, Dialogue & Alignment Inbo partnered with The Trevor Project to design and facilitate a 3-day in-person retreat in New York City for 35–40 members of the Clinical Operations leadership team. Our approach was trauma-informed, equity-centered, and highly participatory. Each day was designed to build on the last, combining strategic design with deep listening and hands-on co-creation:

Day 1 – Grounding & Trust-Building

• Opened with relationship-building and leadership storytelling.
• Explored foundations of trauma-informed leadership practices.
• Created a safe and connected space to surface honest dialogue.

Day 2 – Culture & Values in Action

• Facilitated the co-creation of a Culture Canvas focused on team norms, feedback, communication, rituals, and psychological safety.
• Connected organizational values to the daily work of Clinical Operations.
• Clarified how leadership values show up across roles and functions.

Day 3 – Alignment on Strategy and Success

• Defined vertical-level priorities and measurable success outcomes.
• Aligned on service and quality standards across sub-teams.
• Closed with a collaborative synthesis of key ideas and themes to be shared across the organization.

Throughout, we created feedback loops with leadership to support post-retreat integration.

The Results

A Shared Language for Culture, Clarity, and Forward Momentum. A Custom Culture Canvas : Developed and co-owned by the Clinical Operations team, capturing shared commitments around meetings, decisions, communication, values, feedback, and psychological safety.

Renewed Trust & Engagement : Leaders voiced greater clarity, accountability, and openness, setting the foundation for stronger collaboration.

Clearer Strategic Direction : Teams aligned on KPIs, service standards, and cross-functional collaboration to drive outcomes

Sustainable Momentum : A summarized and synthesized version of the Culture Canvas was prepared for broader team rollout, supporting implementation, reflection, and continuous iteration

Why It Worked

Inbo met the Trevor Project where they were: in a moment of flux and transformation. Our facilitation grounded people in care and possibility, while our design methods moved them toward clarity and action. The retreat became a launchpad for cultural renewal, built on purpose, not perfection.