DRSC's Culture Capacity Framework
You've sat in the room where everyone agrees on inclusion, but the system keeps pushing people out.
You feel the drag. What looks like a failure to execute is actually a failure of your system's capacity to hold people and tension.
Culture isn’t what’s in the handbook. It’s what people feel when no one’s watching.
We developed the Culture Capacity Framework to stop you from circling the same problems. It’s the precise, psychologically grounded map we use to name the actual health of your organization, so you can build structures that reflect the care and courage it takes to do this kind of work.
If you are a nonprofit, a school, or a helping profession, you are in the business of complexity. This framework defines the four non-negotiable pillars required to build a system resilient enough to meet that complexity head-on. If one area is off, the whole thing wobbles.
4 Pillars of DRSC's Culture Capacity Framework
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Relational Integrity
This is the heartbeat of your system: the quality of your relationships and your willingness to own your impact. We look for psychological safety, which determines whether disagreement is seen as a generative opportunity or a dangerous threat. If a rupture happens, does your team know how to address it and repair the connection, or do they retreat into silence?
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Structural Alignment
This is where your stated values hit the reality of your policies. If your hiring, pay, and promotion systems contradict the equity and inclusion you preach, people are going to clock that inconsistency every single time. Structural Alignment is about ensuring your systems—from how decisions are made to who holds power—match your mission, removing the gap between what’s said and what’s felt.
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Sustainable Capacity
Doing good work shouldn’t mean burning out. We look at how your system metabolizes stress. If your people are constantly overworked to compensate for challenges (a common pattern for staff with invisible disabilities), they will leave. Sustainable Capacity is about building the policies—not just the perks—that create real space for recovery and burnout prevention so your talent can stay well, and stay here.
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Competence and Empowerment
This is about who feels capable, trusted, and equipped to lead from where they are. If your team members are constantly waiting for permission to act, you’ve created a system that is drastically underutilizing the very resourcefulness you hired for. Empowerment is the measure of confidence and clarity individuals feel in their roles—the ability to offer dissent and step into initiative without fear of penalty.
The work isn’t to make your people comfortable. The work is to make them capable.
The Culture Capacity Framework gives you the language to stop circling the same problems and start building resilient, human-centered systems. We don’t do culture work by template. We bring years of doctoral training in trauma, identity, and systems to tailor a strategy that addresses your actual pain points—and ultimately enhances your mission.
Ready to build a culture strong enough to hold people and purpose?
