Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative

Strategic Transition and Legacy Planning for a Time-Limited Global Human Rights Organization

Realizing Rights, a time-bound international human rights organization founded by Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights), faced a unique challenge: how to plan and execute an intentional organizational closure while ensuring the long-term impact and sustainability of its mission. With active work across global public health, trade and decent work, gender equity, leadership development, and corporate responsibility, the organization needed to design a responsible exit strategy that preserved its influence and transferred critical initiatives to capable partners.

Challenge

Cora Group was engaged to guide Realizing Rights through a strategic transition planning process that would both honor its time-limited nature and maximize its post-operational legacy.

Our support included:

  • Advising executive leadership and the Board on organizational and personnel transitions

  • Designing and facilitating strategic planning sessions with staff and governance bodies

  • Developing detailed transition roadmaps to support the spin-off and integration of projects into aligned partner organizations

  • Conducting technical, financial, and personnel policy analyses to ensure operational stability during wind-down

  • Integrating an emerging focus on the intersection of climate change and human rights into end-stage strategic decisions to sustain relevance and influence beyond closure

We worked closely with Realizing Rights to embed its core values and programmatic learning into the systems of new stewards and champions across its network.

Solution

The engagement enabled Realizing Rights to complete its lifecycle with intention, integrity, and enduring impact.

Key outcomes included:

  • Successful transfer of programs and intellectual capital to partner organizations, ensuring ongoing momentum for core initiatives

  • Strengthened capacity within global partnerships to carry forward work in public health, labor rights, gender equity, and corporate social responsibility

  • Thoughtful personnel transitions that honored staff contributions and supported career continuity

  • Integration of climate justice as a final strategic focus, contributing to a lasting human rights agenda in a rapidly changing world

Through this engagement, Cora Group helped Realizing Rights demonstrate how an intentional closeout can serve as a model for sustainability, legacy-building, and ethical leadership in global advocacy.

Outcome