System Solutions to Create and Communicate Impact

Get unstuck.

Step out of stale patterns and design dynamics that actually serve you, your team, and your community.

More tools in your problem-solving toolkit.

More alignment in strategic decision-making (even when perspectives differ).

More impactful messaging.

Your work is fast-paced, complex, and meaningful, and your team deserves the best tools and conditions to get it done.

What if you had a powerful (and universally applicable) approach to solution-finding that runs on the specifics of your context and honors diverse perspectives? What if you had the strategic communications capacity to tell your story in a way that resonates and inspires?

You’re in the right place.

A round illustration of three colored circles and one square arranged in a circle with directional arrows between them.

Understand a system’s behavior to make better decisions for better outcomes.

Co-designing custom solutions to common challenges

You have so many decisions to make and you want to make them with intention. But the complexity, the implications of each potential direction, the fear of pursuing the wrong one, the pressure to get it right! It gets overwhelming trying to manage everything all at once.

  • You want to fully leverage team strengths but can’t figure out how.

  • You want to serve your mission in new and better ways, but you need more versatile tools.

  • Your team culture needs improvements but you don’t know where to start.

  • Your messaging is not aligned with your strategic plan and it might be hampering growth.

  • Siloes have formed and you can’t figure out how to create cross-functional cohesion.

  • You have limited resources to invest in a solution and need to identify the best place to direct them.

Answers exist, and they’re hiding in the dynamics of your system! We’ll uncover them together.

An illustration of an iceberg showing the small part above the waterline as "problems we know about" and the big part below as representing the underlying causes of those problems. 
“You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall 
to the level of your systems.”

— James Clear

Solutions designed for real-world problems

Systems & Strategy

  • Better understand tension points

  • Identify highest leverage
    for change

  • See unintended consequences before they happen

  • Deepen understanding of dynamics at play

Illustration of a paper page with lines showing connection to three squares below representing things being connected in a system

Capacity Building

  • Improve ability to apply solution-finding tools to any context

  • Acquire shared language for solving problems and addressing conflict

  • Infuse shared mental models and habits in your approach to work and in organizational dynamics

Illustration of a small brick wall with one brick sliding in from the left to fill a gap, representing building or shoring up support

Strategic Comms

  • Systematize the way you tell your story

  • Improve internal processes for content creation and distribution

  • Connect the internal to the external for maximum impact

  • Add capacity for high-quality content creation

Illustration of a speech bubble with a cog wheel attached representing strategic communications
Image of report cover: "Listening Learning Making Change"

Featured work

Listening, Learning, Making Change: Kids’ Food Basket Stakeholder and Community Report

  • "Hayley has provided tremendous value to our company. She was particularly adept with pushing matters over the finish line with excellence. She is a trusted partner who works with a mission focus and a high level of integrity."

    Carrie Stewart, Co-Founder and Managing Partner

  • “Partnering with Hayley Butler to create a thoughtful and engaging talk was very rewarding. She asked great questions, helped me strategize how to discuss a complex topic, while also considering how to make the biggest impact for the audience. The talk got glowing reviews, and I truly couldn't have done it without her help!”

    — Meredith Beard, Clinical Social Worker and Therapist


  • "I still brag today about the beautiful work Hayley did for us and have not found anyone remotely as good or as talented."

    — Elizabeth Washington, Director of Grants and Education

  • "Hayley was a great collaborator. She was able to quickly plug into a system and process and provide valuable insights, thought partnership, and actionable recommendations. She suggested ideas and tools that were responsive to (often tricky) situations and the group's needs. And, her facilitations were thoughtful, organized, and thorough. I was grateful to have such a partner in the trenches!"

    Ellen Johnson, Senior Director

  • Very quickly, Hayley was able to drive our team to clarity, synthesizing stories, research, and perspectives to create a powerful tool that makes it easy for our team to share compellingly about our work.

    Katy Russner-Travis, Communications Manager

  • "As president and CEO of a thriving non-profit for the past 20 years, I have engaged with many consultants. It can often be a challenge to come to a deep understanding of the scope and complexity of our work in food equity. Hayley Butler was an exception. She was able to grasp the depth of our work and add value through her experiences, perspectives, and passions. We collaborated on a multitude of projects large and small. Through it all, Hayley was responsive, creative, and laser-focused on our mission. I’m thrilled for any organization that gets the opportunity to work with her."

    Bridget Clark-Whitney, President and CEO

Everything is connected

Consider an example of the nature of connectivity within an organization: to grow your business, you need to effectively communicate your mission. To communicate well, your team needs to feel represented by your message, confident in its truth and tone, and capable of using it in their daily work. Your team’s sense of identity circles back to your organizational culture and internal communications, and their ability to succeed with new initiatives depends on your change management and implementation processes.

Whether you need to evaluate an internal challenge or craft new programs and policies, we’ll systematically explore the “loops” you seek to reinforce or rewire. You’ll be able to identify the power of what’s working well and apply those strengths to continuous improvement so that your efforts have maximum impact.

The best part? One investment = limitless returns.

The tools you’ll apply in your most pressing area of need are tools you can apply to all of your work!

You’ll come away with a shared language for exploring challenges as a team and a systematic way to make more strategic decisions. If you’re in client-facing work, you can use the same approach to help clients examine their unique challenges, too.

Illustration showing interconnected parts of a business. Business Growth, Internal and External Communication, Identity, strategy, systems, culture, HR policies, Biz-Dev Pipeline, Business Development, work quality.

Shift Your Thinking from Lines to Loops

I’m Hayley, your partner in finding clarity and crafting change.

I have one speed: “excellence or bust”. But I also love to get to know my clients. You’ll get a whole, relatable person (who just also happens to be results-driven). When we’re not focused on the work at hand, I’ll want to hear about your favorite places to travel, the most riveting books you’ve read lately, and the best dining experiences you’ve ever had.

Portrait of Hayley Butler standing outside.
Overhead photo of a desk with keyboard, pens, eyeglasses, and a notepad.
Hayley Butler brand logo of intertwined lines shape