Case Study

How OpenMined transformed from a distributed workforce into a connected, mission-driven team.

OpenMined’s first retreat took 35 distributed team members to Costa Rica and brought them back as something more than colleagues.

Team Members

95%

Reported increase in trust in their team

90%

Feel more able to ask any teammate for help

Client

OpenMined

Duration

5 days

Location

Costa Rica

Number of people

35 employees

The Challenge

What Was Getting in the Way

OpenMined is a remote tech nonprofit building the missing layer for collective intelligence, tools that let organizations unlock insights from data they can’t access and create value from data they can’t share. With 35 people distributed across the world, many of them had never met in person.

This was their first retreat ever. Not a rebrand of something they’d done before. A genuine first. The challenge wasn’t just logistics. It was the emotional weight of bringing together a team that had built real relationships entirely through screens, and hoping that meeting in person would deepen rather than complicate those bonds. Their main worry was simple and human: would the activities land, and would people who had never shared the same room actually connect?

“It’s impossible to truly know your teammates when you’ve never met them in person.”

Lacey Strahm, Head of Policy, OpenMined

The Approach

What We Did Together

Wilder took them to Costa Rica, a destination that delivered exactly what a first retreat should: beautiful, immersive, and completely removed from the environment where they normally work.

The structure kept the whole team together throughout. Morning meetings gave space for the work that needed doing. Afternoons opened into full-group activities designed to create shared experience from scratch. The Carara National Park excursion put the team in one of the world’s most biodiverse environments. A cooking class brought them around a table in a way that meetings never can. And the Amazing Race, a competitive team-based challenge, became the crucible where new connections formed fast.

Wilder handled everything from visa-related last-minute cancellations to transfer changes on the fly. The team never felt the friction. They just experienced Costa Rica.

The Outcome

What Changed

By the end of the retreat, a team that had existed entirely in virtual space had a shared story. People who had collaborated for months or years finally knew what each other’s laugh sounded like.

“This was our first time ever throwing a retreat and it would not have been possible without the professionalism and expertise of the entire Wilder team. Every step of the process we were supported and well taken care of.”

Lacey Strahm, Head of Policy, OpenMined