Adam Levner is one of the talented co-founders of Critical Exposure, an organization that trains DC youth to harness the power of photography and their own voices to fight for educational equity and social justice. In 2020, that chapter in his life came to an end. And, like many of us that leave organizations we founded, he was left wondering, “What’s next?”

Adam found himself drawn to coaching - he wanted to help other executive directors to navigate the challenging work of nonprofit leadership. But, like the work he did with young people, he wanted to feel his coaching was transformational. He wanted to be a “first coach” for leaders who would not generally have access to coaching.

But, first he wanted to actually be trained as a coach. “For the first time in my professional life,” he said, “I wanted to learn how to do something before actually having to do it.”

Once finished with the training, most people would begin seeking clients. However, Adam explored something different. He was interested in developing coaching pipelines for those that typically didn’t have access to high-level coaching. So, Adam and a partner, Eloise Russo, approached The Equity Lab (where they had both been Seeding Disruption Fellows) and requested funding to pilot what they called the Access Coaching Collective.

The Access Coaching Collective is building a network of emerging leaders who wouldn’t generally have access to leadership coaching and connecting them to high-quality coaches. Hoping for 40 applicants, 79 people applied to receive coaching (71 of them were people of color). These applicants got to choose from 21 vetted coaches (16 were people of color) to receive a 6-pack of coaching sessions paid for by the previously-mentioned seed funding.

When not creating opportunities for equitable access to leadership coaching for emerging leaders, Adam is also building his own practice at Tilt/Shift LLC. Tilt/Shift, an Instagram filter that allows focus on a single object while blurring everything else, is the perfect name for Adam’s consulting practice, which aims to make nonprofit leadership feel doable by focusing on one thing at a time.

As a founder, Adam often felt alone - I know that feeling! But, as he works to create more equitable access to coaching and, hopefully, as more funders recognize the importance of supporting nonprofit leaders through coaching, maybe others won’t have to be so alone.

Interested in leadership coaching? Contact Adam at adam@tiltshift.llc.