Board agendas are full, but relationships matter too. In the first session of The Humble Board, Lon Swartzentruber introduced situational humility and conceptual listening, showing how curiosity can replace assumptions. Discover simple practices to try before your next meeting and why how we work together matters as much as what we accomplish.

A storm that felled 72 trees. A guest’s fall on ice. Two break-ins in two nights. Retreat center leaders shared what they learned from real insurance claims, from documentation habits to coverage gaps, and why a claim is never just paperwork. Discover practical steps your center can take before you need them.

Every retreat center knows the “crunchy” moments, the tension just before a conflict breaks open. At our latest Community Roundtable, Nanci Lee shared four simple phrases for those moments: “I hear you,” “We have you,” “I wonder…,” and “My bad.” They’re easy to remember and harder to practice. Read what she offered and what the community added.

As DEI and racial equity language quietly vanishes, the harm doesn’t. Arleen N. Peterson invites retreat centers to look honestly at their culture, budgets, and whose stories get told.

What Happens When Your Whole Team Walks the Retreat Lifecycle Together?

Most retreat center staff know their own piece of the work well, but few know what their colleagues are doing a year, a week or an hour before guests arrive. At our September Community Roundtable, retreat center advisor Ling Lo shared a hands-on training she designed with HR lead Tatyana Sanikovich at a center in Big Bear, California. The 25-person team, from housekeeping to marketing, sorted every task across seven phases of a retreat, then literally passed a stuffed bear to whoever owned each step. When the bear hit the floor, they found the gaps.

The result? Changes to how they handle registration, new “hub” roles connecting programs and operations, and a cook who realized for the first time that someone was planning his retreat a full year ahead.

Read the full recap to see what the community added and the open question Ling brought to the room.

This piece reflects on the paradox of retreat centre leadership: creating spaces of rest for others while rarely experiencing that rest yourself. Two years removed from the role, the author sees more clearly the invisible labor behind the calm — the phone always on, the vacations interrupted by email, the difficulty separating hospitality's genuine demands from a normalized culture of exhaustion. The piece closes with a challenge to the field: if retreat centres exist to offer renewal, that mission has to extend to the staff who make it possible, not just the guests who receive it. Sustainability, the author argues, means sustainable people, not just sustainable buildings and budgets.

The Humble Board framework reimagines organizational governance by prioritizing relationships and human skills—humility, listening, and curiosity—over procedural rules. Rather than replacing structures like Robert's Rules, it provides the relational foundation that allows any governance system to function effectively, while extending care beyond the board to the whole organization and community.

A recent community call brought retreat leaders together to explore one of the quietest tensions in mission-driven work: how to grow visibility without losing soul. At the center of the conversation was the story of Mount Madonna Center, a multi-generational yoga community in California whose recent rebrand offered a powerful case study in evolving with integrity.

For decades, Mount Madonna grew through word of mouth, rooted in a tradition that intentionally avoided self-promotion. But as a new generation of leadership stepped in, they recognized that much of the Center's depth and beauty remained hidden from the wider world. Rather than impose a top-down rebrand, they engaged founders, elders, staff, and newer voices in a months-long process of listening, reflection, and co-creation. Marketing was reframed not as a corporate exercise, but as a way of showing up — communicating meaning and inviting others into what the community cares about.

The result was a renewed identity grounded in transformation, stewardship, and lifelong learning, expressed through a logo drawn from Vedic geometry, a cohesive new website, and language that speaks to both longtime members and newcomers. Within the first month, the site saw a 65% increase in users and far deeper engagement — but the deeper win was a brand that finally reflected the Center's essence.

The conversation closed with a reminder that resonates far beyond Mount Madonna: branding is foundational, inclusion is essential, and technology, when aligned with mission, becomes an amplifier rather than a distraction. Sometimes the most powerful transformation isn't about creating something new — it's about finally allowing what's already there to be seen.

Difficult conversations aren’t problems to avoid—they’re opportunities to strengthen relationships, and the only way to navigate them is to face them directly with clarity, intention, and courage.

This community roundtable explored the essential role of healthy governance in retreat center leadership, highlighting how boards and staff can collaborate effectively. Featuring insights from Usha Kilpatrick of Mount Madonna Center, the discussion emphasized a clear governance framework—foresight, oversight, and insight—while acknowledging the real-world challenges of transitioning from operational to strategic boards. Participants also reflected on the importance of trust, strong relationships (especially between board chairs and executive directors), and shared values in navigating common nonprofit governance challenges.