Nonprofit Builder: Small fixes and practical office hours for neuroinclusive teams
A webinar with Nonprofit Builder was followed by practical support and an evergreen article about clarity, meetings and workload.
Project snapshot
Organisation: Nonprofit Builder
Relationship: Client case study
Sector: Charity, social impact and leadership development
Format: International webinar, follow-up office hours and written guidance
Date: 2025–2026
Audience: Founders and people working in mission-driven organisations
The brief
Mission-driven teams often work with tight capacity, ambitious goals and a great deal of tacit knowledge. Those conditions can magnify avoidable barriers: unclear priorities, back-to-back meetings, information scattered across channels and heroic expectations about memory or availability.
The work with Nonprofit Builder grew from an international webinar into a wider support pathway. It included direct office-hours support and an evergreen article translating neuroinclusion into small changes that do not require an organisation to wait for a diagnosis, a major programme or a perfect policy.
This was particularly important for founders. A recommendation that only works in a large employer with a specialist people team is not a practical recommendation for a small nonprofit. The brief called for adjustments that were low-cost, culturally realistic and still capable of changing the quality of daily work.
Why the brief matters
The CIPD's Neuroinclusion at Work report found that 23% of surveyed employers were doing nothing to create a neuroinclusive workplace, while only 30% had carried out all-staff education or awareness activity in the previous two years. Training can be a useful entry point, but only when it gives people something more precise than a list of conditions.
Acas guidance on neurodiversity at work emphasises that support should focus on the barriers a person experiences and should not depend on somebody having or sharing a diagnosis. That needs-first principle is relevant across employment, education, events and public engagement: make common processes easier to navigate, then respond to the individual in front of you.
For buyers and partners, the important question is therefore not simply whether neurodiversity was mentioned. It is whether the work was connected to the audience's real decisions, facilitated accessibly and supported by evidence proportionate to the claim being made.
What Divergent Thinking contributed
Divergent Thinking combined an accessible introduction to neurodiversity with examples drawn from communication, workload, meetings and management. The session used knowledge checks and live questions to keep the material active rather than treating participants as passive recipients.
Follow-up office hours created space to apply the principles to real organisational problems. This changed the unit of value from 'content delivered' to 'decision made': a founder could bring an uncertain situation, examine the barrier and leave with a more workable next step.
The public article, The Power of Small Fixes for Neuroinclusion, extended that approach beyond the live audience. It focuses on clarity, meetings and workload—the ordinary systems through which inclusion is either enabled or quietly undermined.
How the work drew on lived experience and neuroinclusive practice
Divergent Thinking's approach starts with a practical premise: neuroinclusion is not achieved by asking everybody to reveal a diagnosis and then attaching a standard checklist. It begins by noticing where the design of work, learning or communication creates unnecessary friction, then combining better defaults with individual support.
Nat Hawley brings personal neurodivergent experience into the work, but does not present that experience as universal. First-person insight is used to make an abstract barrier recognisable—for example, the energy required to decode vague instructions or to perform confidence in a fast discussion—before returning to the question of what an organisation can change.
The learning itself models the principles it recommends. Content is clearly sequenced; important ideas are made visible as well as spoken; examples are concrete; reflection is not dependent on being the fastest voice in the room; and participants are given language they can reuse after the session. These choices support a wide range of people without requiring anyone to disclose personal information in public.
What the evidence shows
The evidence record shows 44 webinar participants, ten submitted questions and six founders requesting follow-up support. In one recorded knowledge-check set, all nine respondents answered two items correctly. A separate later workbook had only four or five respondents, including four correct responses on one item.
These are useful indicators of participation, relevance and immediate understanding. The small and varying denominators matter: 9/9 is not the same as 100% of all attendees, and a knowledge check is not proof of later behaviour change. The stronger story is the pathway from group learning to requested support and reusable public guidance.
What other organisations can take from this case
The value of a case study is not that another organisation should copy every detail. It is that the design choices make a useful starting point for a similar decision.
Design recommendations for the actual capacity of the organisation receiving them.
Use office hours to turn general learning into decisions about real work.
Publish selected insights so the value continues after the live event.
Show response counts beside percentages, especially when feedback samples are small.
Measure requested follow-up as an engagement signal, not as a long-term outcome.
A practical blueprint for similar work
The first step is to define the behaviour or experience that needs to change. 'Raise awareness' is rarely specific enough. A better brief might ask managers to make expectations clearer, help facilitators offer more than one participation route, or enable a team to recognise and reduce cognitive overload.
Next, involve people with relevant lived experience while protecting choice and confidentiality. Lived experience should influence the design and interpretation of the work; it should not become a demand that one employee educate everybody else or represent an entire community.
Then make the desired practice observable. Clear agendas, written follow-up, examples, pauses, predictable routes to support and flexible ways to contribute are easier to use and evaluate than a general promise to be inclusive.
Finally, agree proportionate evidence. Immediate feedback can show relevance and confidence. A 30–90 day follow-up can test adoption. Process data can show whether an agreed change became part of normal work. Each measure answers a different question, and none should be stretched beyond what it can support.
Building a stronger evidence trail
A credible evidence plan begins before delivery. Record the intended audience, the decision the work is meant to influence and the smallest useful set of measures. If a percentage will be published, retain the number of respondents and the total invited to respond. If a quotation will be used, preserve the exact wording, attribution, date and context.
Immediate satisfaction, learning, intended action, observed behaviour and organisational result are different levels of evidence. A strong case study can be valuable with only the first one or two levels, provided the limitation is stated. What undermines trust is presenting a positive comment as proof of sustained change or implying that delivery alone caused a wider outcome.
For a future follow-up, a short question is often enough: what, if anything, did you change after the session, and what became easier or clearer as a result? Specific examples are more useful than an unqualified claim that the organisation is now neuroinclusive.
Further reading and verification
Planning something similar?
Divergent Thinking designs evidence-informed neurodiversity training and practical workplace programmes for employers, education providers, charities and professional communities. The work combines applied neuroscience, lived experience and accessible facilitation. Contact nat@divergentthinking.uk to discuss the audience, the real behaviour you want to change and the evidence worth collecting.
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