Meet a LegacyWorks Impact Builder
Building the People Behind the Partnerships
Summer, 2026 edition
Angela Manavella
Learning & Development Manger, People & Culture
Every successful collaborative has someone who knows how to bring people together. Someone who can hold a hard conversation without it falling apart, and help a community actually decide something instead of just talking about it. That skill isn't accidental. It's learned, practiced, and built through intentional leadership and the willingness to keep showing up.
Angela Manavella knows this better than most. As LegacyWorks' Learning and Development Manager, she is helping develop the Community of Practice series of various core topics, offering staff and partners across the network the opportunity to learn the same skills that turn a room of stakeholders into a group that trusts each other to move the needle.
Why this work?
Where do I start? The world needs our collective care and attention, and that is hard work. Being a part of LegacyWorks feels like that work is happening and resulting in really meaningful change, and it is the people driving it. Over time, I have gravitated towards wanting to leverage these people (you all) to continue their incredible work and get to the heart of why it matters to them. I am their cheerleader, working to uplift their strengths and leadership to fulfill what’s most important to them and explore their journey forward with enthusiasm.
Where's a place you go to think?
My favorite place is the forest, however it’s most often at my desk (where my family mostly leaves me alone).
Facilitation looks easy from the outside and isn't. What's one thing about trust you didn't understand until you were the one in the room running it?
Trust in the group is key. Creating those spaces for others to share and engage, and trusting that the flow of the group could guide the conversation can then allow for what is meant to emerge. Sometimes that needs a facilitator’s encouragement, but I believe that trusting that space allows others to as well.
Who taught you that?
I learned by seeing it in practice. I’ve been fortunate to have been either the participant of or support to many skilled facilitators who really embrace those silent moments as well as the wisdom of the group.
The CoP's last series was on inclusive facilitation. What's one facilitation skill that's actually learnable, not something people either have or don't?
It’s all learnable! One skill that can feel challenging, especially in the moment, is recognizing and calling out difficult moments and/or conflict. Conflict can be generative, and it also often creates tension. As the facilitator, it’s important to hold that space for authenticity and vulnerability. One way of navigating those moments is by co-creating working agreements (or perhaps shared goals) and providing accountability, re-establishing what the group committed themselves to honoring.
What's your go-to snack for a full day of workshops?
Peanut butter protein bar.
If your job was a board game, what would it be?
Dominos, perhaps? Reflecting what the other person lays down while creating a new path forward, without really knowing where it may lead!