Logbook: Our Work for a Better World

2024

March 2024

In March, our Managing Partner Karsten traveled to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, to kick off the cooperation between the Cosmikk Foundation and our new project partner, Future For Ukraine Foundation (FFU).  

Read the full blog here.

The team of Leadership Choices in Ukraine has identified a group of 10+ coaches in Ukraine who are all highly motivated to support our initiative. They are very experienced,  well-trained, ICF certified, and also speak both English and Ukrainian.

In a series of workshops, we started training them in our resilience models and certified them to use our resilience inventory Executive FiRE Index.

Read the full post here.

In March 2024 we also reached our B-Corp Certification! After two years of thorough work, we officially joined the global movement fostering responsible entrepreneurship and a value-based and sustainable form of capitalism. 

Read the full blog here.

February 2024

To accompany the launch of our collaboration with the Future For Ukraine Foundation, we also published a very personal and deeply inspiring interview with Elena Nikolaienko in our podcast Leaders Talk.

Watch the full interview here.

January 2024

In January we made the decision to select the Future for Ukraine Foundation as our first NGO to be supported by Cosmikk Foundation and Leadership Choices. 

FFU provides prosthetics to wounded soldiers, psychological counseling to women who experienced sexual violence, and social support to children with mental health issues.

In a first meeting that took place between Elena Nikolaienko, President of the Future for Ukraine Foundation, and Karsten in Warsaw the details of our coaching support were discussed.

Read the full post here.

Also, we published our first Annual Impact Report for the year 2023 summarizing all our activities for social equality, climate justice, fair pay, community support, and much more.

Read the full report here.

2023

December 2023

We finalized our strategy on how Leadership Choices and the Cosmikk Foundation can work hand in hand to give leaders of humanitarian NGOs free access to high-quality coaching.

In several calls with Ukrainian organizations and coaches, we pitched our idea for support and received helpful feedback to fine-tune our approach.

November 2023

In November, we concluded the preparation of the launch of our Cosmikk Foundation with a Fundraising Event in Wiesbaden.

Read the full post here.

September 2023

In September, we completed the second module of a training program Coaching Essentials for members of the jury of the zis-foundation. This NGO gives study grants to young people so that they can explore a new country alone and without own money.

Find out more about the work of the zis-foundation here.

August 2023

Also this year, our managing partner Karsten set out for another Coaching for a Better World Fundraising Tour. Overall, it was the 7th tour of his Around The World by Bike project and it led him from Saskatoon through the Canadian Prairies via Chicago and Detroit to the scenic Niagara Falls and finally to Toronto.

Read the full blog here.

July 2023

In July our support for the local aid organization Dachzeltnomaden officially ended after completing six team workshops and about 20 individual coaching mandates for the core team.

Watch an interview with some core team members on their experiences here.

June 2023

In June we published an episode of our Podcast Leaders Talk featuring Dennis Brandt, co-founder and managing director of the NGO Dachzeltnomaden. The team of Leadership Choices has been supporting their core team since February of 2022.

Watch the full interview here.

April 2023

The team of Leadership Choices joined the global Pledge 1% Movement.  Here, companies are members who have committed themselves to donate at least 1% of their time, products, or profit each year to charitable causes.

Find more details on Pledge 1% here.

February 2023

Another team workshop with the core team of the NGO Dachzeltnomaden took place in the Ahr-Valley.

2022

December 2022

The fourth team workshop with the Ältestenrath of the NGO Dachzeltnomaden took place with professional support from Leadership Choices.

August 2022

In August, our managing partner Karsten set out for another Coaching for a Better World Fundraising Tour. Overall, it was the 6th tour of his Around The World by Bike project and it led him from Vancouver through the Rocky Mountains via Calgary to Saskatoon.

It was the first tour which was dedicated to supporting the work of our newly founded Cosmikk Foundation.

Read more about his tour here.

July 2022

The Cosmikk Foundation was officially founded by the Managing Partners of Leadership Choices: Uwe Achterholt and Karsten Drath.

And this is the official mandate:

Because of our experience with supporting the local aid organization Dachzeltnomaden Hilfsorganisation in the flood region of the Ahr Valley, we decided that supporting NGOs in crisis regions should be one of our core competencies going forward.

Also, the third workshop with the core team of the Dachzeltnomaden took place in the Ahr-Valley.

June 2022

In reaction to the war in Ukraine, the team of Leadership Choices organized a Conference "War in Ukraine - How Can We Help?" which was also published as an episode in our Podcast Leaders Talk.

Watch the recording here.

May 2022

In our Podcast Leaders Talk, we started a series of interviews dedicated to emerging leaders in the context of the war in Ukraine. Via our connections inside the International Coaching Federation, we identified Olga Vasylets, an ICF-certified coach living in Kyiv, who was helping many fellow citizens to cope with the effects of the war.

Watch the full interview with her here.

April 2022

The individual coaching for the members of the Ältestenrath of the local aid organization Dachzeltnomaden was kicked off. All in all, about 20 coaching partnerships with coaches from Leadership Choices started their work.

Also, the second workshop with the core team of the local aid organization took place with the support of our managing partner Karsten.

March 2022

Shocked by the war in Ukraine following Russias aggression, Leadership Choices joined an initiative of the German chapter of the International Coaching Federation to offer free coaching for people affected by the war. We provided our digital coaching platform Cosmikk free of charge to enable easy scaling of this project.

The project attracted many coaches from all over the world who wanted to help. Unfortunately, there were hardly any people from Ukraine who wanted coaching at that point in time. The timing was not right. Also, language issues played a role and the fact that coaching as an intervention is not well-known in Ukraine yet.

To read more about this initiative, click here.

February 2022

In February, the first team workshop with the Ältestenrath of the local aid organization Dachzeltnomaden took place. This NGO had been spontaneously founded after the flooding in the Ahr-Valley in July 2021. Since then the young team had been working for 7 days every week to help the affected people to rebuild their houses.

January 2022

Team members of Leadership Choices went to the Ahr Valley to help in the flooding region. Together with many other volunteers, they helped flood victims to rebuild their houses.

2021

November 2021

After several failed attempts to find a suitable way for our coaches to help in the flood region of the Ahr Valley, we finally found the local aid organization Dachzeltnomaden in Rupperath. We instantly liked their great team spirit and their strong focus on the collective. It was a refreshing contrast to other organizations which were more built around individual hero figures.

February 2021

The team of Leadership Choices decided to reduce all carbon emissions as much as possible and offset the remainder going forward with CO2 compensation projects.