About
Our Mission
The mission lives in our name.
Choose Your Change connects communities, ideas, and resources to create meaningful, systemic change.
“A world where individuals and communities have the connections and resources to turn ideas into meaningful impact”
Our Vision
Our Vision
“A world where individuals and communities have the connections and resources to turn ideas into meaningful impact”
What We Do
Choose Your Change (CYC) is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit and creative strategy hub that helps ideas and change actually happen.
- We sit in the middle of things — in a good way.
- We work between farmers and designers.
- Between manufacturers and artists.
- Between public agencies and private partners.
- Between vision and real-world execution.
If something needs to move from Point A to Point Z — we help build the road.
We’re not just “connectors.” We’re the vehicle. The translator. The air-traffic control. The glue. The bridge. The checklist. The Stunt Double. The creative brainstorm. Sometimes all in the same week!
How We do It
The CYC Model
At Choose Your Change, we help ideas turn from inspiration to real-world impact by bringing people, resources, and systems together. Our work follows a practical framework that brings vision and execution into action.
Where vision meets execution
Many organizations have great ideas. Many communities have important needs. But meaningful change often requires something in between — alignment, coordination, and structure.
Choose Your Change operates in that space.
We connect people, resources, and systems to help ideas turn from concept to real-world implementation. Whether aligning farmers and manufacturers, supporting funding pathways, or building cross-sector partnerships, CYC helps transform vision into initiatives that can grow, adapt, and last.
“Connecting the dots in the spaces between vision and reality.”
We start by listening. Every project, community, and partnership comes with its own history, pressures, and possibilities. Before we move anything forward, we assess what already exists — the relationships, the systems, the resources, the gaps. We don’t believe in reinventing structures for the sake of it. We don’t recreate the wheel. We evolve it. Strengthening what works, refining what doesn’t, and aligning the moving parts so they function together.
From there, we build practical pathways. That might mean restructuring a grant application so it qualifies, aligning farmers and manufacturers so timelines match, designing a sponsorship model that makes sense, or creating a framework that allows creative ideas to operate inside real-world budgets. We stay steady inside complexity, anticipate pressure points, and design systems that can adapt as they grow. The goal isn’t just to launch something — it’s to make sure it can last.
Choose Your Change (CYC) began in 2010 as Lending a Hand and Foot (LAHAF)—pronounced “Laugh”—in response to the earthquake in Haiti. What started as an urgent relief effort quickly became something more structured. We brought together specialists in emergency medicine, logistics, curriculum design, and volunteer training with one clear realization: good intentions aren’t enough. Impact requires coordination, alignment, and people who know how to work together under pressure.
As we continued supporting disaster recovery efforts, we learned something lasting — crisis looks different for every person and every community. What destabilizes one place may be invisible to another. It is not our role to judge, define, or position someone else’s reality. Our role is to listen, assess, and show up with skill and structure where it’s needed.
In 2020, LAHAF formally relaunched as Choose Your Change. The name reflects both agency and forward motion. Today, we carry that same foundation into all of our work — stepping in as the steady hand, the systems builder, and the bridge that helps ideas and communities move from disruption toward lasting progress.
We don’t wait for things to fall apart.
We strive to build them strong enough to survive the impact.
Where We Got Our Start
Where We Got Our Start
Choose Your Change (CYC) began in 2010 as Lending a Hand and Foot (LAHAF)—pronounced “Laugh”—in response to the earthquake in Haiti. What started as an urgent relief effort quickly became something more structured. We brought together specialists in emergency medicine, logistics, curriculum design, and volunteer training with one clear realization: good intentions aren’t enough. Impact requires coordination, alignment, and people who know how to work together under pressure.
As we continued supporting disaster recovery efforts, we learned something lasting — crisis looks different for every person and every community. What destabilizes one place may be invisible to another. It is not our role to judge, define, or position someone else’s reality. Our role is to listen, assess, and show up with skill and structure where it’s needed.
In 2020, LAHAF formally relaunched as Choose Your Change. The name reflects both agency and forward motion. Today, we carry that same foundation into all of our work — stepping in as the steady hand, the systems builder, and the bridge that helps ideas and communities move from disruption toward lasting progress.
We don’t wait for things to fall apart.
We strive to build them strong enough to survive the impact.
Strategic and Creative Problem Solving
Community exists at every scale — inside a person, inside a neighborhood, inside an organization, inside a global network. Whether visible or quiet, each layer requires clarity, resilience, and alignment to stay strong. The same foundations that guided our crisis-response work — steady leadership, clear communication, and the ability to mobilize support when it matters most — continue to shape how we operate today.
Our team brings cross-sector experience from projects across New York, the United States, and beyond. We understand both the opportunity and the responsibility that comes with that perspective. When individuals, businesses, or communities are ready to move from aspiration to action, we step in with structure, insight, and strategic support — helping strengthen leadership, refine direction, and build systems that allow impact to last.
Leadership Team
Together, CYC’s leadership team brings experience across the arts, wellness, environmental, and agricultural sectors. Each member contributes a distinct strength — connecting ideas, building strong operations, and shaping clear, compelling stories — and when those strengths align, vision turns into action. The team works comfortably across creative spaces, public systems, and community initiatives, building partnerships that bridge culture and infrastructure. This balance allows CYC to support innovation while keeping projects practical, aligned, and built to last.
