CBI's Managing Director Stacie Smith Reflects on 2025

The 43-day government shutdown this fall punctuated a year of federal agency cuts, restructuring, and program eliminations, which has affected people across all sectors of public life. As an organization built on ensuring people have a voice in public decisions that matter to them, we have been paying especially close attention to these developments. What we’ve learned: these federal changes have had cascading effects on decision-makers at all levels. This disruption and uncertainty have undoubtedly caused pain. But as the federal government retreats from many spaces and roles, resulting adaptations have opened possibilities for new ways of thinking and doing for other actors.

We see an increased need for effective collaboration, new partnerships, alternative funding mechanisms, and even new institutional arrangements. Leaders and groups from states to the non-profit community to the private sector are seeking out structured processes that support better, wiser, and more sustainable collaborative decisions. As a result, CBI has been taking on more state, regional, and local projects, more work with NGOs, and increased work internationally, with multi-laterals, and in the private sector, including in corporate-community engagement. To name a few: we are working in Massachusetts and Virginia to think about the future of electricity and the energy transition, and n Colorado, we are helping the state’s land board reshape its role in overseeing state trust lands. With the International Olympic Committee, we are bringing together athletes, coaches, and leaders to find new ways to protect athletes from abuse. In Panama, we are helping a major mining company and community transform their conflict. In India, we are partnering with IIT Delhi to advance more collaboration in siting renewables.

We have also noticed shifts in the types of collaborative processes sought out in this moment. As governments and organizations face new pressures and uncertainty, they're investing in planning more creatively and adaptably. More and new types of collaborations and consortia are coming into being to fill gaps, needing help to design themselves and how they will work together. Our number of strategic planning and internal consensus building projects—with nonprofits, municipalities, and new types of clients—grew substantially in 2025, and I expect this to continue in 2026.

Through it all, our mission is as relevant as ever. As the instability that defined 2025 shows no signs of abating, we will continue our work on projects that show the value of collaboration, coalitions, and shared leadership. And given the adaptability and creativity exhibited this past year by decision-makers at all levels, we remain optimistic about the prospects for collaborative problem-solving in the year ahead.