The Renewal Experience
A shared journey where donors experience life together and rediscover why the work matters to them.
Why This Exists
This is a small, guided shared experience set in a beautiful place away from everyday life: Valencia, Spain.
Your organization gathers up to 7 participants for three days together. This includes supporters, board members, and members of your team.
For a short time, normal roles soften.
Staff are not hosting.
Board members are not governing.
Supporters are not being engaged.
Everyone is simply present together.
The structure is simple:
• shared activities
• unhurried meals
• lightly guided conversation
• space to reflect
• thoughtful facilitation
There are no presentations.
No campaign decks.
No hotel ballroom speeches.
Instead, participants move through the city together, share meals, and encounter a different culture side by side. The pace slows. People begin seeing one another more deeply.
Gradually, conversations open:
Why did this work become important to you?
What has it asked of you?
What has it given you?
The nonprofit is no longer being discussed from separate positions.
It becomes a shared part of everyone’s life.
Valencia is chosen intentionally. A different culture interrupts routine. Being somewhere unfamiliar makes reflection easier and allows participants to notice things they normally move past. The setting gives each person something different: rest, perspective, inspiration, or distance.
What This Is
Mornings are shared experiences in the city.
Afternoons allow space to wander, rest, or talk in small groups.
Evenings are long meals with gentle, guided dialogue.
This is not a packed itinerary.
There is room to breathe.
Team members often experience something they rarely receive: time without responsibility. They are not managing an event, solving problems, or representing the organization. They are participants in it.
Supporters encounter the people behind the work without a formal context.
Board members experience the organization relationally rather than structurally.
Conversation happens naturally because no one is performing a role.
Participation is always voluntary.
No one is required to share.
Listening is welcome.
Silence is welcome.
What to Expect
The first day feels social.
People are still carrying their roles with them.
By the second day, something softens. People begin telling stories about their lives and their connection to the work. Laughter appears more easily. So does honesty.
By the third day, a different atmosphere forms.
Board members speak with staff without hierarchy.
Supporters understand the weight staff carry.
Staff feel seen rather than evaluated.
A temporary equality emerges.
The organization stops being a structure and becomes a group of people who care about the same thing in different ways.
After returning home, interactions change.
Meetings feel less formal.
Conversations feel easier.
Understanding increases.
Not because policies changed.
Because relationships did.
Why This Feels Different
For some, it does feel like a reward.
Staff step away from urgency and responsibility.
Supporters step away from obligation.
Board members step away from governance.
Each person arrives carrying a different relationship to the organization.
For a few days, those differences matter less.
People who support the work and people who carry the work spend time together without roles to perform. They share meals, conversations, and a new place. A natural equality appears.
What unifies the group is simple: they all care about the same mission.
The experience is restorative in different ways for each participant. Some find rest. Some find perspective. Some find renewed motivation.
People return with more than memories.
They return with understanding, renewed energy, and a clearer sense of how they want to take part in the future of something they now feel part of together.
Participation & Safety
No one is put on the spot.
No one is required to share personal experiences.
You may listen as much as you wish.
Reflection is always invited, never demanded.
Some moments may feel unfamiliar at first. That is part of the design.
The experience does not ask participants to perform vulnerability or enthusiasm. It simply creates space where conversation can happen at a natural pace.
You are not expected to do anything perfectly.
Curiosity matters more than confidence.
Quiet participation is welcome.
Taking time for yourself is welcome.
Practical Details
Small group: up to 7 participants
Length: 3 days
Location: Valencia, Spain
Language: English
The group stays together throughout the experience while still allowing personal time and rest.
The schedule is intentionally light. The goal is not to fill every hour, but to allow conversations and shared moments to develop naturally within the setting.
A Guided Supporter Experience
You may not remember every conversation.
You will likely remember a moment.
For a short time, people stepped outside their roles, their responsibilities, and the expectations connected to them.
They experienced a place together.
They spoke honestly.
They understood one another differently.
Afterward, interaction becomes easier, not because anyone tried harder, but because they had been somewhere together first.
And often that is enough for a community around a mission to feel alive again.