Planning, Acting, and Evaluating Through Complexity
At Cense, we work with networked organizations seeking to create greater health impact in the individuals and communities they serve and through higher-performing, creative teams.
You are a networked organization if the success of your mission is dependent upon others to achieve it, like in health, social impact, or environmental wellbeing.
Cense supports leaders and their teams in non-profit and health-oriented organizations, networks, and systems to plan, act, and evaluate work that makes a difference. Our strategic design approach connects strategy, evaluation, service design and leadership support for those seeking to generate health in living systems.
Strategic design is how we turn what we want and have available into what’s possible.
What We Do
Strategic Plans & Evaluation
We craft plans that connect your vision, mission, and resources together with the strategy, tactics and developmental evaluations to transform uncertainty to insights that help you act wisely in complex systems
Services & Systems Design
We bring together people, ideas, and processes to help you envision and create the services and systems that generate positive health outcomes for your teams, clients, and partners
Leadership & Learning Support
Our advisory and coaching services draw on more than 25 years’ experience working in networked health systems. We provide training, facilitation and support to leadership teams operating in complex contexts
We work with networked organizations whose success in achieving their missions rely on connecting and working with others. This requires a distinct set of of skills, systems, strategies, and ways of working, which we bring and differentiate us from traditional consultancies. See our cases page to see how we’ve worked with organizations to create impact through strategic design
Professions & Networks
Professional associations, communities of practice, and research networks
Health Organizations
Care providers, health networks, public health services, and health promotion organizations
Foundations & Charities
Funders and non-profits strengthening health, social, and environmental systems
For two decades, we’ve worked with large and small organizations at the local, provincial, national, and international levels. Our clients face complex challenges in their people, their services, and their subject matter. Complexity is where we do our best work. Some of our past clients include:
Peel Public Health
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health
US Centers for Disease Control
Praxis Institute / Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Institute
Health Canada
Ontario Association of Public Health Dentistry
Foundation House
Durham Region Health Department
Algoma Public Health
Holland Bloorview
Health Commons Solutions Lab
Elections Canada
Project Neutral
Ronald McDonald House – Toronto
TakingITGlobal/Connected North
American Evaluation Association
Employment & Service Development Canada (ESDC)
Region of Waterloo Public Health
MaRS Discovery District
Green Healthcare Coalition
Your work over the past couple of years has been invaluable and really assisted us with this journey, particularly when we were feeling exhausted and needed some guidance. You have helped to set us up for success, …and we have a much clearer path forward – Public Health Leader (client)
Our cases page has illustrations of how we’ve worked with organizations to deliver value and impact.
About Cense
Let’s introduce our President and Principal:
I’m Cameron Norman, President & Principal of Cense. I’ve spent over two decades working at the intersection of health, design, and systems — as a consultant-practitioner, educator, and researcher.
I trained as an organizational and communitypsychologistin public health, and have studied and taught systems and design thinking. I’ve spent my career as an educator, evaluator and strategist, working at the intersection of health & social impact.
As Principal, I lead our work that helps networked organizations connect, collaborate, and create in ways that achieve health and wellbeing.
I’m also the Chief Coffee Officer, too. Let’s grab one sometime (click below).
Networked organizations are living systems. We have designed a company dedicated to working with complexity and living systems grounded in values, and always supporting learning and innovation.
Our logo tells a story about our work.
We put people at the centre of what we do, connecting them to their roots to ground their actions in their values, mission, aspirations, and talents so that they can flourish, grow, and thrive.
We design for living systems – interconnected networks working together to help people flourish.
Our office is located on the ancestral, traditional, and unceded territory of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation – Treaty 13 (Toronto/Tkaranto). We actively pay our respect to this land’s stewards and Elders, past and present, and to the future generations who continue to care for it. At Cense, we are humbly committed to supporting Truth and Reconciliation through our actions, and ongoing efforts to learn, grow, advocate, and listen.
