2024 in Review: SDI, Trainer Tour, and More

Can you believe the year is almost over?! December always rolls around at a dizzying speed—and for us here at Crucial Learning, this year has felt like a marathon at a sprinter’s pace! With so many changes within our certified community, it’s been a densely packed year of announcements, and I’m thrilled to carve out space to unpack and reflect on those changes with you… and to share a little of what we have to look forward to for 2025.

What were your highlights this year? Share in the comments below!

Core Strengths Acquisition and SDI Integration

The biggest change within Crucial Learning kicked off the year with the January acquisition of Core Strengths! With the acquisition, the flagship Core Strengths product—the Strength Deployment Inventory, or SDI—launched Crucial Learning into a new category of assessments. Integration has been top of mind for just about every Crucial Learning employee as we’ve welcomed Core Strengths team members into our staff, gotten up to speed on the SDI, and worked behind the scenes to fully integrate both the SDI and its certified facilitators into our Crucial Learning framework.

Bringing thousands of certified facilitators into our certified community sparked stepping away from using the trainer label on everything from Trainer Zone to Trainer Talk to Trainer Tour. The name change has taken getting used to, but we’re thrilled to complete the integration process early next year.

The last piece of the puzzle is merging our databases in early 2025—and then our legacy Core Strengths certified facilitators will gain access to Certification Zone, our social media groups, the Lives Impacted and grant programs, and more. We appreciate the patience shown by all groups as we’re merging worlds. The SDI is such a perfect complement to the entire Crucial Learning suite of courses, and we’re thrilled to continue bringing its value to our certified trainers—and to bring our certified facilitators up to speed on the courses that can extend the learning of the SDI!

Coming Soon: Crucial Teams

Speaking of the SDI and courses, we’re preparing to launch our newest course, Crucial Teams, in Q1 2025. While that’s more a look forward than a look back, it would be a miss to skip the mention here. You won’t want to miss Master Trainer Justin Hale’s preview of the new course to learn how you can elevate team performance within your organization.

Trainer Tour, ATD, and Crucial Learning Live

One of the highlights of my 2024 was spending time in person with our certified community across America! From hosting Trainer Tour lunches in Denver, Chicago, and the D.C. metro to handing out dozens of certified trainer pins at our ATD booth in New Orleans, I absolutely loved getting to talk with so many of you, hearing your stories, and learning more about how we can help you succeed. It’s been a joy to keep up with so many of the trainers I met this summer, and the experience has brought home just how crucial that in-person connection is.

That’s why I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be hitting the road again in 2025! Our renamed Crucial Learning Live will be making its way to southern California, Houston, and Boston this spring. We listened to the feedback received in Trainer Tour and have extended the event to a full day of learning, networking, and dining. Stay tuned for registration information in coming months. I’ll wrap up the cross-country travel with ATD in Washington D.C. in May and look forward to gathering with you there as well!

Lives Impacted 2024

Congratulations to our Lives Impacted Class of 2024! We applaud you for the combined 3,773 trainings you logged in 2023—with a special shoutout to Angela Barone, Patrice Hatcher, and Kim Hanson who logged the most sessions at 29, 28, and 24, respectively. That’s a lot of lives impacted through the knowledge, skills, and heart you share in your course sessions.

If you want to participate in Lives Impacted 2025, there’s still time! Access is earned by the previous year’s trainings—meaning that the trainings you log now will go toward your Lives Impacted status next year. Click here to log your trainings before December 31!

Lives Impacted by the Numbers

652 certified trainers qualified for Lives Impacted.
18 countries are represented by Lives Impacted earners, including Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States.
110 trainers earned Platinum Status (9+ trainings logged)
138 trainers earned Gold Status (6–8 trainings logged).
404 trainers earned Silver Status (3–5 trainings logged).

Grant Program

This year we were able to support the most nonprofit organizations the grant program has helped since pre-pandemic, thanks to the 29 certified and master trainers who donated their time to train courses pro bono for these organizations in need.

Through our grant program, Crucial Learning will donate learner materials to qualifying nonprofits—and beginning in January, we’ll offer the grant for the SDI assessment as well! We’ve already started processing grants for 2025. If you’re interested in participating, click here to learn more and apply.

Grant Program by the Numbers

562 learner guides donated to nonprofit organizations through the grant program this year
$131,737 saved by nonprofits thanks to donated learner materials.
$416,350 saved by nonprofits thanks to pro bono facilitation.
$548,087 combined value of facilitation and materials donated to grant program recipients—which is over $100 of value for every $1 Crucial Learning donated this year!

Many thanks to this year’s grant program trainers for providing Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue, Crucial Conversations for Accountability, or Getting Things Done to their respective nonprofits:

Samer Lawand—Boy Scouts of America, Pathfinder District (Indianapolis, IN)
Bill Wettstein—Apostolic Christian Church (Eureka, IL)
Bell Perez—Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health (Southgate, MI)
Amy Daly-Donovan—National Diaper Bank Network (New Haven, CT)
Jasmine Bailey—A Girl Like Me, Inc. (Detroit, MI)
David Tantis—Legacy Australia (Brisbane, Australia)
Rhonda Barry—Grand Valley Institute for Women (Kitchener, ON, Canada)
Russell Virgin—Families of Early Learning Essentials (Provo, UT)
Johnda Buck—First Christian Church (Warsaw, IN)
Bev Vitali—National Ornamental Metal Museum (Memphis, TN)
Rhonda Zuraff—Families First Learning Lab (Missoula, MT)
J. Lynn Jones—Building Beginnings (Spanish Fork, UT)
Anne Banks—Crossroads Christian Church (Corona, CA)
Nicole Morrison—TriCounty Community Network (Pottstown, PA)
Missy Downer—Mid-Del Group Home (Midwest City, OK)
Pam Dykstra—Calvary Christian Reformed Church (Pella, IA)
Carol Delisi—Friends of the Sheridan Public Library (Sheridan, MT)
Wendy Arnott—Humane Society of London Middlesex (London, ON, Canada)
Stacey Roques—Alzheimer’s Society of Kingston (Kingston, ON, Canada)
Rosey Parker—Brightside Child & Family Advocacy (Savannah, GA)
Jaimie Hoffmann—Support the Enlisted Project, a.k.a. STEP (San Diego, CA)
Robyn Mabry—Emmanuel Temple (Old Hickory, TN)
Eric Boylan—The Other Side Academy (Denver, CO)
Tarik Bazzy—Zaman International (Inkster, MI)
Esteban Ramon—YMCA of Greater San Antonio (San Antonio, TX)
Emilio Ron—Scholarship Plus (New York, NY)
Laura Larsen—Friends of the North Logan Library (North Logan, UT)
Kimberly Cook—Academy 4 (Fort Worth, TX)
Chase McMillan—The Other Side Academy (Salt Lake City, UT)

As we wrap up the year, I want to say a big thank you to each of you within our certified community! We’re thrilled to watch our community connect, grow, and gel in the year ahead. Here’s to more adventures in 2025!