Our Work
Gilbert + Chittenden (G+C) uses the principles and practices of design thinking – a human-centered approach to innovation. With strong emphasis on empathy and creativity, our work helps organizations imagine the future they want to create and to apply the ideas and skills to get there.
We believe the very best ideas are like puzzles - each person in your group has one of the pieces but nobody has all of them. We have helped clients build internal capacity for innovation, develop long-term strategies, and rethink their services, products, and their cultures.
Strategic Visioning
G+C provides strategic visioning services. Beyond strategic planning, we help organizations create clarity around their "Why?" and synthesize the trends that impact our lives and our work. We create customized tools for our clients to help them make vision-aligned decisions as their context changes.
Innovation Workshops
Innovation is not an event, it is an ongoing process. While a few organizations are large enough to support an internal innovation team, most need support from external partners for a continual stream of fresh thinking and employee engagement. G+C offers customized professional development workshops that range from 2-hours to 2-days that give participants the skills to strengthen communication, build creative cultures, and ask bolder questions. We serve as meeting facilitators, idea sounding boards, and innovation coaches.
Energizing Community Action Agencies
G+C helps Community Action Agencies embrace innovative approaches to deliver on their mission and support the lives of the people they serve. We partner with clients to energize creativity, discover fresh opportunities, and establish clear baselines. We help these organizations clarify vision, reimagine work, and focus on results-oriented practices that meet the specific needs of specific communities and organizations. Read more about our Community Action Agency offerings.
Strengthening Higher Education
Building on Dan Gilbert's background is in design thinking with a special emphasis on higher education, G+C works with universities, policymakers, educators, and students to find the very best ways to combine the power of new tools and face-to-face experiences to create measurable and sustainable learning gains. We facilitate strategic planning for higher education, lead workshops on innovation and learning, and teach undergraduate and graduate courses on design thinking.