AGENCY

Agency is a strategy and organizational development practice that partners with people, organizations, and communities to create more courageous, equitable, and meaningful futures. Founded by Hillary Spencer, EdD, Agency helps our partners recognize their capacity to influence systems, build trust, cultivate belonging, and transform possibility into meaningful action.

Agency isn’t something you have. It is something you do.

The Work:

• Strategy & Organizational Development
  Understanding where an organization is, imagining where it could go, and designing the path between the two.

• Research & Strategic Analysis
  Turning evidence, interviews, benchmarking, and observation into insight that supports better decisions.

• Facilitation & Workshops
  Creating the conditions for people to question assumptions, navigate complexity, build trust, and move ideas into action.

• Leadership Development & Mentoring
  Helping leaders build the capacity to lead through uncertainty, cultivate agency in others, and create meaningful change.

• Thought Leadership & Field-Building
  Research, writing, speaking, and collaborative inquiry that help organizations and fields articulate why their work matters and imagine what comes next.

Mission: Agency exists to help leaders, organizations, and communities imagine and build futures that are more courageous, equitable, and meaningful. We begin with one simple question: If you could do anything, what would it be? Then we help make it possible.

Philosophy: Agency begins with the belief that possibility is abundant and that scarcity is a mindset. Agency does not deny constraint, we simply refuses to let constraint define what is possible.

The Agency Dictionary

Words shape how we understand the world. Sometimes we redefine them. Sometimes we restore them. Sometimes we ask them to do new work.

Throughout this Dictionary, familiar words may appear with unfamiliar parts of speech. That’s intentional, because if we are to build better futures, we first need new ways of talking about what is possible.

Agency (v.): To intentionally shape the future through courageous action. To reject the belief that systems are fixed. Redefined here as a verb rather than a noun. Agency is not something you have. It is something you do.

Belong (v.): To create the conditions in which people know they matter. To invite participation without requiring conformity. Redefined here as an action rather than a destination.

Courage (v): To dream of possibility when certainty is unavailable.

Curiosity (n.): The desire to understand what we do not yet know. The willingness to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and remain open to surprise. Understood here as the beginning of possibility.

Disrupt (v.): To question the assumptions, stories, and systems of established narratives. Creating the conditions for change.

Hope (v.): To act in service of a more just future. To choose possibility despite uncertainty. Redefined here as action rather than optimism.

Joy (n.): The experience of meaning, connection, and delight in the process. A condition that expands creativity, resilience, and possibility. Often assumed to be the reward for effort; understood here as part of the work.

Lead (v.): To create the conditions in which other people can flourish. To cultivate agency rather than dependence. To prepare people and organizations not simply to endure change, but to shape it. Redefined here as a practice rather than a position.

Learn (v.): To expand how we understand ourselves and the world. To remain open to being changed by new experiences. Redefined here as transformation rather than accumulation.

Museum (n.): A space in which people encounter ideas, objects, stories, and one another, and are invited to see the world differently. Understood here not simply as a place that preserves the past, but as a place where people imagine the future.

Play (n.): A radical method of exploring possibility. A way of experimenting, imagining, and discovering without fear of failure. A tool essential to learning, creativity, and transformation.

Possibility (n): The belief in more perfect futures.

Trust (v.): To create the conditions in which people are willing to take meaningful risks together. To choose vulnerability over certainty. Redefined here as a practice rather than a feeling.

Better futures don’t just happen. They are imagined.

If you’re asking difficult questions, navigating change, imagining new possibilities, or simply wondering what comes next, I’d love to explore them with you.

Every collaboration begins with a conversation. Let’s start with this question, and then let’s discover what is possible:

If you could do anything, what would it be?