Sherry Schiller, Ph.D. | About Sherry Schiller

About the Schiller Center

Schiller Center offices in Alexandria, Va.

I launched the Schiller Center in 1985 to help people in organizations create better futures for themselves, their organizations, their communities, and the world. I had spent the previous year working and traveling overseas, including backpacking solo around the world. My work overseas involved studying the impact of emerging technologies on women in developing countries. One of the conclusions I formed was that the hierarchical, industrial organizational model of American businesses, nonprofits, and public sector organizations would no longer work in the coming years, and would need to be replaced by more interactive, dynamic organizational systems. In fact, it occurred to me that the "pre-industrial" communities in which I was working were more prepared and capable of making this shift than did many American organizations. People in these communities still knew how to work together with purpose and harmony. It was disturbing to witness top-down Western structures being imposed on these vibrant living systems in an attempt to "modernize" them.

Creating the Schiller Center provided me a platform for studying, teaching, and practicing organizational and social change initiatives. I had many questions I wanted to be able to investigate. I needed to be able to link research to practice that made a positive difference for people and the organizations in which they work. And I wanted to be free to serve those who were ready to change in order to better serve others.

In its first few years, the Center grew rapidly in size, which caused me to realize that my calling was to work directly with client leaders and not manage a staff that did the work I loved to do. I made the decision then to continue the Center "virtually"—a concept that didn't become popular for another twenty years. Over time, I have attracted an amazing team of individuals and organizational partners to provide exactly what a client needs. For example, for more than a decade I've worked with a "naming expert" whose talent is creating the perfect moniker for any service or initiative. It's not often a client needs a former Madison Avenue Superstar whose specialty is honing in on the essence of something so precisely she can perfectly name it—but when that need arises, I know who to call.

Keeping the Center virtual has also allowed me to collaborate with individuals and organizations who have complementary skills and compatible values. I have learned a lot from these co-ventures, and the Center's clients have benefited from this rich cross-pollination across sectors, geographies, and initiatives.

I have been asked over the years why I decided to make the Center a 501c3 nonprofit organization rather than a firm I owned—a very logical question, given that this is not the typical consultant business model. It was essential to me that whatever I created always serve the common social good by being mission-focused. I wanted to be accountable to a Board, modeling what I teach to nonprofit clients. Today, the Center's Board of Directors consists of business and community leaders who guide and support my work and assure the Center's resources serve its mission.

The Center has also served as a mechanism for redistributing resources from clients who had greater ability to pay for services to those who were equally worthy but had less ability to support their needed change initiatives. This has worked out well—the Center serving as a sort of modern day Robin Good.

Finally, I wanted the focus of every consultation, research project, keynote presentation, or article written to express the truth as I understood it to be in the interest of the people I was serving, rather than what they wanted to hear. I believe twenty-two years later, I am still driven by the understanding that I am not a "hired" consultant but a servant of powerful ideas that improve people's lives.

Over the years, the Center has received grants and tax-deductible gifts that allowed us to pursue research and writing projects, develop curricula and train educators on how to use them, and serve "underprivileged" organizations. The primary source of our funding, however, comes from fees for services performed by myself and the partners I bring to a project. All of the work I have done since 1985 has been conducted through the Center.