Confluence Policy & Strategy Group

Confluence PSG is a policy and strategy firm built around a single conviction: that the most consequential problems facing government, communities, and institutions are not unsolvable. They are unresolved because the processes designed to address them have not been up to the task.

The firm’s core methodology is the Collaborative Decision Making Process (CDMP), a structured framework developed over more than fifty work groups, task forces, and multi-stakeholder engagements. The CDMP is not generic facilitation. It is a deliberate sequence that addresses the reasons high-stakes processes typically fail: participants are put in the wrong order, trust is assumed rather than built, problems are defined too late, and negotiations happen over positions rather than language. Working through that sequence is why a room that voted against something one week can vote with a super-majority in support on the same question the following week. It is why parties who have been in direct opposition for years can reach unanimous agreement on a framework neither of them would have written alone.

The documented public record reflects what that methodology produces. An AI governance framework, after three failed legislative attempts, passed overwhelmingly and was signed into law thirteen days after introduction. A major system’s transit governance reform, gridlocked for years and a process that  produced 31 recommendations, now codified in legislation. A committee examining a criminal justice commission that was sunsetting after twenty years reached broad consensus on a new structure, charge and composition. More than 1,100 educators surveyed produced findings that contradicted all available prior data and reframed what state action was actually required. Fifty-eight disability rights recommendations were published after coordinating four simultaneous subcommittees across a politically diverse set of interests.

The practice spans civil rights, education, criminal justice, transportation, public safety, housing, healthcare, workforce development, and strategic planning. The breadth is not incidental. The cross-domain perspective that comes from working across all of these areas simultaneously is one of the firm’s most concrete advantages in any single room.

Confluence PSG operates as a fee-for-service firm. For foundations, family offices, and partners who prefer to work through a nonprofit structure, Confluence Policy Center is available as a 501(c)(3) vehicle to support convenings and collaborative initiatives aligned with shared priorities.