for organizations
the humanity of those doing the work is essential to the mission — not incidental to it
Most organizations working in service of others didn't set out to harm the people doing that work.
And yet. The mission statements that speak of dignity, equity, and care often exist in direct tension with the cultures that have formed around them. Leaders are asked to make decisions that violate their values and then told to be resilient. Staff are expected to carry collective trauma with no space to process it. Well-being initiatives get layered onto traumatized structures and then leaders wonder why the needle doesn't move.
This isn't a failure of intention. It's the often unacknowledged legacy of industrialization — and the predictable result of operating in systems that, despite their best intentions, become perpetrators of harm. Systems that prioritize productivity over people, compliance over conscience, and performance over presence. Not by accident, but by design.
Just as individuals can be traumatized, so too can the systems and organizations we serve within. Organizational trauma — the accumulated weight of unaddressed moral injury, vicarious trauma, and institutional betrayal — doesn't just live in individual bodies. It lives in cultures, structures, and the unspoken rules about whose needs matter and whose don't. And like all trauma, it cannot be healed by managing symptoms or ad hoc well-being initiatives.
What it requires is a genuine commitment to a duty of care — not as a legal or HR concept, but as a leadership practice — an ongoing commitment to creating conditions where people can actually sustain meaningful work without sacrificing their moral and spiritual integrity to do so.
The duty of care practiced in most mission-driven organizations has historically focused on physical health and safety — and that matters. But in a post-COVID world, in an era of polycrisis, physical safety is not enough. A more holistic duty of care framework must also address the mental, emotional, spiritual, and relational dimensions of staff wellbeing. It must have mechanisms to address the root causes of harm, not just managing symptoms, while acknowledging collective trauma as an organizational reality, not just an individual problem.
At Roots in the Clouds, we believe a holistic, human-centered duty of care requires four commitments:
Commitment 1 | Normalize and address occupational mental health challenges and trauma
Commitment 2 | Evolve from metrics-driven cultures into human-centered ones
Commitment 3 | Support rest and recovery
Commitment 4 | Foster shared purpose and commitment
We have 4 key offerings designed to support these commitments.
offering 1 | organizational trauma consulting
Real culture change requires more than new policies, updated mission statement or adding a trauma-informed label to existing programming. It requires an honest examination of the gap between an organization’s words and its actions — and the courage to take steps to bridge that gap.
I consult with leadership teams in government, humanitarian, and nonprofit sectors on a range of interconnected challenges: creating and implementing a duty of care framework that addresses the full spectrum of staff wellbeing; identifying and healing the root causes of organizational trauma — including unaddressed vicarious trauma, moral injury, and institutional betrayal; and developing human-centered culture blueprints that translate organizational values into aligned practices, policies, and leadership.
The work we’ll do together is grounded in story-healing, moral imagination, spiritual ecology, and uses regenerative leadership principles that aren’t designed to simply restore organizations to a previous state — but to create conditions for ongoing healing and renewal. We help you hold pain and possibility by building moral and spiritual capacity as an organizational practice so your organization can move from simply reacting in the face of challenge to making values-aligned choices that not only allow you to meet your mission, but protect those doing the work as well.
Consulting engagements are tailored to your organization’ needs and can look like anything from a leadership team retreat or a systemic assessment, to facilitated strategic planning through a trauma-informed lens, or longer-term partnership. Every engagement begins with a conversation about where you are now, and where you want to go.
"Dimple is an exceptional leader and gifted facilitator whose scholarship on moral reclamation, paired with her experience leading civil service teams, helps her name what's happening and translate values-based service delivery into practical, humane ways of working. Our team felt safe and held — describing the workshops as cathartic, healing, and insightful — and we left more grounded, trusting, and able to care for ourselves and one another in the difficult work ahead."
— Jill Martin Diaz, Executive Director, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project
offering 2 | speaking + facilitation
Some of the most important work an organization can do is create space for the conversations that aren't currently happening — about moral injury, about institutional betrayal, about what it actually costs people to serve within systems that weren't designed to sustain them.
Through keynotes, workshops, and facilitated sessions that meet people where they are, I help organizations open those conversations in ways that are trauma-informed, grounded in lived experience, and oriented toward possibility and forward-movement rather than stagnation.
Recent engagements:
From Restoration to Regeneration: Spiritual Ecology and Collective Care as Response to Collective Moral Injury and Institutional Betrayal — Durham University, International Centre for Moral Injury
Holding Pain and Possibility Together: Simple Grief Rituals for Collective Care in Fractured Times — Yale Women's Mental Health Conference
Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self — Beyond Aid Summit: The Women Behind the Work
Integrity in Practice: Rooted Leadership in the Face of Moral Injury and Institutional Betrayal — 92nd Street Y
Regenerative Leadership — International Humanitarian Leadership Conference (Update with additional recent engagements as needed)
For a full list of workshops and speaking topics, contact us and be sure to checkout our full list of past engagements.
"Dimple created a supportive, brave space for our staff to manage their emotions effectively. The feedback from our team was overwhelmingly positive — they found her insights incredibly useful and her presentation both engaging and relatable. It was refreshing to have someone who not only understood our professional landscape but also recognized the impact it has on mental health."
— Charles Slocumb, Chief Operations and People Officer, Acacia Center for Justice
offering 3 | regenerative leadership intensive
Most leadership development programs teach strategy, communication, and execution — all essential for leaders operating under normal circumstances.
But these aren’t in normal circumstances.
Seasoned leaders across mission-driven sectors are navigating something traditional programs weren't designed to address: how to lead with integrity when the ground is shifting beneath you. How to support teams carrying the weight of collective grief, vicarious trauma, moral injury, and institutional betrayal. How to stay rooted in your values when the systems around you are actively working against them.
The Roots in the Clouds Regenerative Leadership Intensive was built for this moment — and for the leaders who are courageously trying to navigate through it.
Our signature program is designed for experienced leaders in government, humanitarian, and nonprofit sectors who are ready to do the deeper, values-aligned work of leading in times of crisis. Using our moral reclamation framework, this program brings together story-healing, moral imagination, and spiritual ecology to help leaders enhance their moral and spiritual capacity.
After completing this program, participants leave with:
An embodied experience of moral imagination in community
New capacity for navigating institutional complexity with integrity
Deeper understanding of how their experiences shape — and can reshape — their stories
Reclaimed connection to their voice, values, and truth in relationship with others
Fresh relationship to purpose, boundaries, and sustainable service
Practical tools for individual and collective nervous system regulation
A community of others practicing values-aligned regenerative leadership
Two formats:
We know that time is a precious resource these days. For that reason, we've created two formats to provide organizations with flexibility to choose what will best support the needs of the organization and the participating leaders. Both formats are grounded in the same moral reclamation framework curriculum.
8-Week Cohort Program | Best for organizations that want sustained practice and integration over time | A structured curriculum delivered over eight weeks in small cohorts — combining facilitated sessions, guided reflection, and collective care practices.
3-Day Intensive Retreat + Follow-On Collective Care Circles | Best for organizations seeking an immersive off-site experience with ongoing support built in | An immersive three-day retreat followed by three collective care circles over the following months — creating both the depth of an intensive experience and the sustained support needed for meaningful integration.
"I came carrying questions I'd held for a long time. What I found was spaciousness — time to look deeper and tools to help me move beyond familiar cycles of frustration. Dimple has a gift for helping you see the connections between your own experiences and the patterns in the natural world. These weren't just metaphors; they became ways of thinking and being that I'm still working with."
— Hannah E. Hardy, Aging Services, Allegheny County Department of Human Services
offering 4 | 1:1 coaching + collective care circles
threshold coaching for leaders
Leadership in mission-driven sectors creates particular kinds of wounds — the kind that don't show up in performance reviews but quietly erode the moral and spiritual capacity needed to lead with integrity over the long haul.
Threshold coaching for leaders is designed for exactly this.
Whether leaders are navigating institutional betrayal, processing the moral weight of decisions they’ve had to make, or standing at a crossroads in their leadership journey — this work meets them where you are with curiosity, compassion, and care.
Organizations can bring threshold coaching to their leaders as a stand alone offering or part of a broader investment in duty of care — pairing individual support with the work of culture change.
collective care circles for teams
Some of the heaviest things leaders carry, they carry together — and yet most organizational cultures don't create space to actually process that shared weight.
Collective care circles bring small groups of leaders and staff together to do what organizational culture rarely makes room for: naming what they're carrying, witnessing each other's experiences, and developing shared practices for sustainable service.
Each circle weaves together somatic practices, guided reflection, and facilitated conversation — creating the conditions for collective healing that individual support alone cannot provide.
Available as a standalone offering or as a follow-on to the Roots in the Clouds Regenerative Leadership Intensive.
"Dimple helped our board process the organizational and individual trauma we've experienced in the midst of never-ending attacks on reproductive rights. In her gentle way, Dimple helped us name our feelings of anxiety, helplessness, and rage — and we came away feeling more connected to ourselves, each other, and our mission, and better prepared for the long fight ahead."
— Robin O'Neil, President, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast
the road ahead requires moral courage
The organizations that will sustain meaningful service through this era of polycrisis aren't the ones that continue trying to figure out how to get more from already depleted people.
This new era requires something different — cultures that support moral reclamation as a pathway to sustainable service. Cultures rooted in connection and care, where collective grief is honored, and where the humanity of those doing the work is treated as essential to the mission, not incidental to it.
That work is possible. But it requires moral courage. It requires moral imagination. And it requires support. All of which are available here.
Let’s talk about what’s possible for your organization.
a note on how I work
I work with a small number of organizations at any given time, by design. The deep work of supporting organizations in their desire to build more human-centered cultures requires depth, trust, and sustained attention — none of which are possible if I’m spread too thin.
I'm most effective with organizations that acknowledge something needs to change and are genuinely ready to do the work to address root causes — not organizations looking to check a well-being or DEIB box or add a trauma-informed label to existing programming. If you're not sure whether we’re the right fit, the most useful thing we can do is have a conversation.