Turning Your Leaps Into Transformative Feats

Social Impact Consulting

Partnering with you on social impact strategy, program build-out, impact measurement and evaluation, organizational leadership

Guidance & Facilitation

Help your company, family, or team navigate complexity and dynamics with grace

Leadership Development & Coaching

Professional development for teams and individual coaching

Speaking

Invite Sarah to speak to your board or staff, or join your social impact convening / panel discussion

About Sarah

Sarah Cotton Nelson, flying trapeze-enthusiast and founder of High Flying Strategy, is a social impact leader with 20+ years’ experience guiding organizations to maximize their impact. She is known for helping others create vision and implementation road maps for social change; aligning leadership intent with action; and connecting disparate individuals and groups to each other so that they can team up to do even more powerful work together.

Updates & Resources

Kind Words

  • Sarah facilitated a two-day leadership retreat for my team of 15 researchers and it was fantastic. She led us through a series of team-building activities, get-to-know-you exercises, and a structured program for honing the group's vision and mission. I highly recommend her as a coach, mentor, or facilitator for your leadership programming.

    Michael E. Webber
    The University of Texas at Austin

  • Strategy, Results, and People Leader / Developer. I appreciated you as a white female championing our RDEI efforts at CFT. We needed an executive to step up during one of the hardest times experienced by workers of color, and you leaned in. I am thankful and forever grateful to have spent 6 years under your leadership.

    Ashley McIver, MPA
    Senior Philanthropy Officer, Communities Foundation of Texas

  • As a passionate and skilled leader, Sarah guides teams to think differently about philanthropic impact. She is both a learner and a coach, which helped her team to be successful when both volume and expectations grew quickly.

    Lee Kuntz
    Certified Business Process Improvement Trainer

  • Sarah is the rare visionary leader that can drive long-term strategy AND build and sustain high functioning teams. She looks three steps ahead and helps the team identify opportunities they didn't know existed. She is a brilliant communicator who is skilled at bringing allies on board. She's perceptive, compassionate and an advocate for people to speak their truth and ask for what they need.

    Galen Smith
    Sr. Philanthropy Officer, Communities Foundation of Texas

  • I had the opportunity to be on Sarah’s team for almost 5 years. She meets teams where they are and finds ways to open doors and guide them towards growth. The real joy, heart and inclusion she brought into her work was contagious and a model for how I want to show up each day in my own work.

    Celeste Arista Glover
    Senior Community Philanthropy Officer at Communities Foundation of Texas

Creating change is a long game

Whether you need support to clarify the vision of what you are trying to achieve, identify first (or next) best steps to get there, or develop a way to feed new information into your strategic prioritization process, High Flying Strategy is here to partner with you on your road to social impact.