KREWE School
Program Overview
Krewe School is a year-long, team-based professional development program that builds the collective capacity of community-based organizations, municipal departments, and K–12 or university campus units working toward transformative social change. Unlike traditional professional development that focuses on individual skill-building, Krewe School brings your whole team together to redesign how you work, lead, and pursue impact together. Krewe School is especially powerful for teams at a critical turning point: a leadership transition, a strategic pivot, a cultural shift, or a moment of growth that has outpaced your current structures.
Over 12 day-long sessions from August to May, your Krewe will:
Redesign or sharpen your strategy, clarifying how your actions connect to the impact you seek
Understand how your work fits within the larger field and identify critical relationships that shape the problem you're trying to solve
Experiment with new approaches, co-create programs with the people you aim to serve, and build on what you learn from participant feedback
Increase trust, redistribute power, and democratize decision-making across your team, including across levels of hierarchy
Connect with peer organizations and teams across New Orleans, building relationships that outlast the program
Sessions are in-person, hosted in a space intentionally designed and supported by a team of facilitators to feel collaborative, creative, and energizing. Between sessions, your team works with a dedicated coach who supports you in bringing what you're learning into your daily work. Executive leaders will also experience peer learning and executive coaching to further support organizational culture change.
KREWE School Pillars
Program Pillars
The Pillars of KREWE School are the foundational components of the curriculum. We start the program with curiosity using a judgement free inquiry based approach to explore key questions. Program participants (aka KREWES) then build capacity to increase social impact through knowledge and application of concepts covered in each pillar. By the end of the program, many KREWES will have the answers to some of their most critical questions, creating space for innovation and sustainable change.
WHAT PAST PARTICIPANTS SAY
Past participants describe Krewe School as the “gold standard of professional development,” balancing immediate, practical application with deep relationship-building and trust. Many teams felt that simply committing to deep strategy and change work outside of their day-to-day tasks was one of the most transformative aspects of the experience. Teams have made tangible changes to how they operate and lead, including:
- Developing a clear, compelling theory of change and securing new external funding as a result
- Doubling participant-sponsor meeting rates and redesigning their annual conference into a connection-focused retreat
- Including staff in quarterly board meetings for the first time, creating real shared governance
- Applying design thinking to program delivery and incorporating community feedback loops
- Building new partnerships to expand programming capacity
Is Krewe School Right for Your Team?
Krewe School is designed for teams, not just individual participants and not just team leaders. The program works best when a critical mass of team members across functions and hierarchy attend together, because the transformation happens in the relationships and shared practices you build, not just the content you encounter.
Teams That Thrive in Krewe School:
✓ Will commit 3 or more* team members to attend consistently across all sessions
✓ Are open to collaborative, non-traditional experiential learning methods
✓ Find themselves at a critical turning point** that requires a fundamental shift in how they lead, work together, or pursue impact
✓ Have positional leaders with real decision-making authority over program strategy and team culture
✓ Include leaders that are willing to examine their own assumptions, disrupt entrenched patterns, and share power in both principle and practice
*The minimum required for eligibility will be determined by the size of your team; however, at minimum the program requires 3 consistent participants.
**A critical turning point might look like a leadership transition, a strategic pivot, a funding pivot, a shift in team culture or internal relationships, or a moment of growth that has outpaced your current structures.
Teams That May Not Be the Best Fit (At This Time):
- Cannot commit to stable, consistent attendance from at least 3 members
- Are in a period of acute crisis with no capacity for strategic thinking
- Have leaders who are not ready to disrupt entrenched hierarchy and power-hoarding with their team
What’s Next?
If your team has determined that Krewe School might be the right fit for this moment, please complete the application by Tuesday, June 30, 2026. Team leaders will be interviewed by a Taylor team member on a rolling basis as applications are received, with all interviews completed by Friday, July 31, 2026. Teams will be notified of the final decision in mid-August. Specific program dates will be shared here as soon as possible.
Contact
Rebecca Otten
Professor of Practice and Director of Strategy and Engagement
Email: rotten@tulane.edu
Phone Number: (504)314-7069