Leadership. Strategy. Humanity.

FROM THE WISHFUL DOING TEAM

October asks us to pay attention.

Hi friends, and welcome to October.

This month holds two things we care about deeply, and they belong in the same breath: the safety of the people we serve, and the systems we build to serve them well.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. For many of the students, staff, and colleagues in our orbit, harm at home is not a statistic. It shows up as a missed class, a camera that stays off, a colleague who suddenly needs flexibility and can't quite say why. You don't have to be an expert in intimate partner violence to make a difference. You do have to be ready to notice, respond with care, and know where to point people.

Go back and listen. Then go one layer deeper.

Our three-part podcast series, When Love Turns Lethal, with Dr. Marissa Leslie and Dr. Timothy Golden, has officially wrapped. If you haven't listened yet, this is the month. If you have, it may be worth a second listen with a different question in mind: what would I do if this showed up on my team tomorrow?

Every episode has a companion toolkit waiting for you inside the Hub:

•     Rise Room: the companion toolkit to help you recognize the signs and respond with care.

•     Impact Collective: deeper tools for bringing the conversation to your team and your practice.

•     Legacy Lab: resources for leaders shaping the policies and culture their whole institution runs on.

MARYLAND STUDENT PARENT POLICY

Today is SB 420 compliance day.

October 1 marks the compliance deadline for Maryland SB 420. Under the new law, every Maryland public institution of higher education must have its pregnant and parenting student plan posted on its website by today, October 1, 2026. The law also brings new expectations for collecting parental status data from students, in a format set by the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

For many of us, this has been years in the making. For institutions, it is the beginning of the real work: turning a policy on paper into practice that reaches student parents where they actually are.

Stay tuned: a webinar co-hosted with MHEC

We're co-hosting an upcoming webinar with the Maryland Higher Education Commission to bring clarity to state expectations around data collection, so your institution can move toward compliance with confidence instead of guesswork. Here's what you'll walk away with:

•     Clarity on what the state expects around parental status data collection

•     A guided walk-through of the Wishful Doing SB 420 Implementation Guide

•     Access to two hours of complimentary technical assistance from Wishful Doing, tailored to your institution

Date and registration details are coming soon. Keep an eye on your inbox and the Hub.

In case we haven't properly met.

Many of you know us through the Hub: the Rise Room, the podcast, the roundtables. The Hub is one half of who we are. Here is the other half.

Wishful Doing partners with mission-driven organizations navigating growth, change, complexity, or stalled execution. Most of the organizations we work with know exactly where they want to go. What they don't always have is the structure, the systems, or the capacity to get there.

That space between ambition and capacity is where we live. Wishful Doing helps close the gap between organizational ambition and organizational capacity. We help organizations build the systems, and develop the people capable of sustaining them.

Leadership.  Strategy.  Humanity.

Our consulting work sits at the intersection of leadership, strategy, and humanity. We help organizations diagnose what is getting in the way, build the systems and leadership practices necessary to move forward, and develop the internal capacity required to sustain the change.

We don't separate organizational strategy from the human beings responsible for executing it. We can help you:

•     Identify what needs to change

•     Build the strategy and systems for changing it

•     Develop the leaders responsible for carrying that change

•     Support implementation until new ways of working begin to take hold

We bring the rigor of strategy and organizational consulting together with leadership development, equity, capacity building, and a deeply human understanding of how change actually happens.

If your organization knows where it's going but keeps losing momentum somewhere between the strategic plan and a Tuesday afternoon, that isn't a failure of will. It's a capacity gap. And capacity gaps can be closed.

TODAY  |  OCTOBER 1  |  12:00 TO 1:00 PM ET |  RISE ROOM POP UP

AI for Everyday Business: Tools, How-To's & Pitfalls

Curious about AI, but not interested in the hype or the tech jargon? Join RRK Associates, sponsored by Wishful Doing, for a practical introduction designed for nonprofit leaders, higher ed professionals, executives, business owners, and anyone who wants to work smarter with AI.

You'll learn what today's AI tools can actually do, how to get better results, where AI can go wrong, and practical ways to use it to save time, improve communication, streamline processes, and generate better ideas.

No technical background required. Just bring your curiosity.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6  |  3:00 TO 4:00 PM ET  |  COMPLIMENTARY RISE ROOM MEET UP

What Needs My Attention?

A Leadership Clarity Check-In & Coaching Conversation with Dr. Linda Chambers

When everything feels important, how do you decide what deserves your attention?

Leadership can become a constant cycle of responding: to people, priorities, problems, and decisions. Sometimes what leaders need most isn't another strategy. It's space to step out of the noise long enough to see clearly.

In this complimentary Leadership Clarity experience, you'll:

•     Complete the Leadership Clarity Scorecard

•     Reflect on six dimensions of your leadership

•     Experience a preview of Strategic Clarity, the first module of the Leadership Strategy Collaborative™

•     Leave with one intentional next move

No preparation. No perfect answers. Just an hour to think about your leadership.

Sign Up for More with Dr. Linda Chambers this October

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15  |  6:30 TO 7:30 PM ET | HANDS-ON RISE ROOM MEET UP

Name It. Build It. Show It.

Join Dr. Christine Crefton on Thursday, October 15, from 6:30–7:30 p.m. ET for Name It, Build It, Show It, a hands-on Rise Room MeetUp for mission-driven leaders.

Turn one real experience into a clear skills statement and begin gathering evidence of what you can do. Bring an example from your work or life. A complimentary Skills Visibility Starter Kit is included. Hosted on The Wishful Doing Hub.

Christine creates content on The Wishful Doing Hub, where she earns revenue from sales.

WISHFUL DOING COURSE

For the leader who keeps showing up on empty.

If the opportunity for the Clarity Check-In above made you wince a little, you're in good company. Some seasons, the problem isn't your strategy. It's that you've been running on reserves for so long you've forgotten what full feels like.

Rooted and Rising is a Wishful Doing course for leaders ready to stop treating their own capacity as an afterthought. It's where you learn to manage your energy with the same intention you bring to everyone else's needs, and to lead from something sturdier than willpower.

You'll still care deeply. You'll still show up. You just won't be doing it at your own expense anymore.

Image of participants in April 2026 Mastermind Leadership Strategy Collaborative Roundtable.

The Founder's Arc: the replay is in.

On September 23, our Mastermind Roundtable gathered founders and leaders for The Founder's Arc, an unhurried conversation about building something that matters and what it asks of the people building it.

If you were in the room, you already know it was one of those conversations you keep thinking about days later. If you missed it, or you want to sit with it again, the full replay now lives inside the Legacy Lab.

This replay is a Legacy Lab resource, reserved for members who are building something meant to outlast them.

GOING DEEPER

For the leaders who want more than the preview.

If you've read this far thinking, "I want the whole thing, not the highlights," that's not an impulse. That's readiness. Here's what's waiting a layer deeper this month:

Members, your resources are waiting in your community space inside the Hub. Not a member of these communities yet? This is for people who have outgrown surface-level development and are ready to lead with more support, not less.

YOUR VOICE, OUR NEXT MOVE

Help us build what you need next

We build the Hub for you, so we want to hear from you. Tell us about the role you hold, the organization you serve, what feels heaviest right now, and what you'd love to see inside the Hub next.

It takes about 7 minutes. Your answers directly shape the courses, tools, and conversations we create in the months ahead.

BEFORE YOU GO

October is a lot. Awareness months, deadlines, and a calendar that somehow filled itself. Take what serves you this month and leave the rest. And if you only do one thing, check on someone. You never know who needed the question.

With care (and a very full calendar),

Ja'Bette and the Wishful Doing Team