Purpose-driven professionals in higher ed, nonprofit, and social impact are doing management work every single day — usually without a roadmap, and often without even calling it that.

Manager's Lab is where you finally get the strategy, language, and frameworks to lead intentionally — in your own voice, from your own values, without going back for the MBA or the PhD.

Cancel anytime. Covered by most nonprofit and higher ed PD budgets!

What's new in the lab: March is all about Strategic Planning

This month, we're tackling allll the strategic planning acronyms — KPIs, SWOT analysis, OKRs, oh my! — and pulling the curtain back on how to run a process your team will actually want to engage with. (Plus, sharing a distinction around performance indicators that we haven't seen anywhere else and a blueprint for using them.)

Inside, you'll find the strategic plan templates we use for our own consulting work, a SWOT thought-starter you can run with your team in under an hour, and (of course) our monthly live call where you can bring your thorniest planning problems to work through them together.

Is this you?

You're smart. You're capable. You care deeply about the work. And yet —

• Work still feels reactive, even when you technically know what you're doing
• You're leading by instinct and it's working — but you know you're missing something
• You've Googled "how to be a better manager" and ended up 42 tabs deep, still stuck
• You're not sure you want an MBA, but you're not sure what else to do instead
• The thought of a leadership role excites you and terrifies you — what if you have to become someone you're not to do it well?

If any of that landed: you're in the right place.

Tired of advice that starts with "just go get another credential"? Yeah, us too.

Here's the thing about most management training: it treats leadership development like a knowledge problem. Take in enough information, earn enough credentials, and you'll eventually become a great manager.

But knowing more isn't the same as getting unstuck.

Knowledge acquisition is only Stage 1 of 4. The other three stages — developing your point of view, building your theory of change, and actually practicing — are what turn information into leadership. Most training stops at Stage 1 and calls it done.

We don't.

And you know what else we don't do? ❌ This isn't another credentialing course, and it isn't an endless series of videos. Because you don't need another lecture. You need practice, tangible exercises, and feedback.

(Psst — if your future holds a SHRM, a PMP, or something else, we'll leave some pro-devo coins left over for you to go get it. Honestly, we've probably got a referral. Not kidding — reach out.)

How the Lab works

The heart of Manager's Lab is the Boundless Impact Growth Framework — a four-step loop you run every month with every topic:

1. Gaining Knowledge — Learn the concept (no jargon, no MBA required)

2. Developing Your Point of View — Form your own perspective on it

3. Developing Your Theory of Change — Understand how you will apply it

4. Practicing & Testing — Use it in real situations, with real feedback

The goal isn't just to understand what you've learned. It's to be able to articulate it — in an interview, with your team, with yourself.

No more drinking from a firehose. Just targeted, immediately-practiceable content that leads to actual practice that lends itself to feedback, coaching, and growth.

What's inside

Each month, a new content drop lands in the Lab focused on a core management topic. Every module runs through all four stages of the Growth Framework — so you're not just learning concepts, you're developing a point of view on them, building a theory of change around them, and practicing using them in real situations.

You'll get:

• Monthly content drops covering project & program management, people management, strategic thinking, organizational influence, critical thinking, and creativity — all through a lens built for mission-driven work
• The Lab Notebook — a tool for tracking your progress and building your Management Theory of Change
• Notion templates you can use right now to start leading your teams more intentionally
• Checklists, guides, and a workshop on using projects from your own job to practice these skills
• Monthly live Q&A (1 hour) with the Boundless Impact team — bring your thorniest problems
• A private community where the questions are real and the advice maps to your actual context
• Responses to your questions within 24 hours
• Dynamic content additions based on what members are actually wrestling with

Built by people who've been where you are

Most management training is built for corporate contexts, by people who've never had to translate "stakeholder management" into that time you had to wrangle seventeen faculty members, ten parents, and a dean into agreeing on anything.

The Boundless Impact team has, between us: an MBA, a PMP, most of a Leadership PhD, and a background in L&D. More importantly, we all came up in higher ed and nonprofit spaces before making our own pivots:

Alli worked in Orientation and First-Year Programs → transitioned to instructional design, organizational effectiveness, and program management.

Caroline worked in Student Activities → transitioned to project management, marketing and brand strategy, and entrepreneurship.

Kyle worked in FSL and Leadership Programs → transitioned to impact consulting, corporate training, and executive coaching.

We use management principles every single day. And we're pulling back the curtain to show you exactly how — using frameworks that build on what you learned working in mission-driven spaces to make impact and get paid.

After a career built on leadership and human development, you're more ready than you think. Let's go.

What people are saying

"I'd call you my secret weapon… except gatekeeping is the antithesis of everything you stand for."

"I talked to Caroline for 20 minutes and had a clearer vision than I've ever had about where to take my career next, and how to get there." (Heads up: this person now works as a project manager at a Fortune 500 company — in their first role outside a nonprofit setting.)

"Girl. Come on. You all should be charging a million dollars for this." (Heads up: charging a million dollars is not in the plan 😂)

"The way you think about management is so different than anything I've seen before. Thank you for keeping HUMANS centered." (Heads up: it is possible!)

"I wish I'd reached out to you all sooner. Like two jobs ago." (The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today.)

Let's talk $$$

Investment starts at $39/month (or $429/year — that's one month free).

Here's the deal: I said for years I was never going to offer a paid course. And then, slowly, as people started paying me for ad-hoc coaching, I kept hearing: "You have got to package this up."

Rule #1 of ethical project management? We listen to our stakeholders. ❤️

So here's the guarantee: if you join Manager's Lab and you give it your all — reading the modules, trying the activities, attending the calls, reaching out to us — and you don't feel like you got what you paid for, just get in touch. Full refund, no questions asked.

We've structured this as a monthly membership because different people will benefit from different amounts of time in the program. Two implications:

• Cancel anytime.
• Need to pay annually because you're using PD funding or a p-card? Easy peasy – just select the annual option. (AND tell your a/p department we gave you a month free for doing so. We're already making friends 🙂)

Buying in bulk for your team? Reach out to hello@createboundlessimpact.com for bulk pricing.

You can also download a letter to share with your institution about how the program will benefit you (and them!) here:

FAQ