This paper presents the inductive findings of a 2-year field study documenting the formation of the PACT for Social Transformation, a meta-organizational coalition of 15 geographically dispersed youth- serving NGOs brought together by the United Nations as a means to intensify efforts in the global response to HIV/AIDS. Positioning the democratization and opening of strategy formulation as an essential field configuring event, we document the process through which disparate actors were able to overcome conflicting meaning systems and logics to converge on a meta-level strategic frame. We identify three underlying process mechanisms: (1) reflection, (2) reflexion and, (3) abstraction, that trigger shifts in patterns of sensemaking to allow actors in complex transnational fields to come together and coconstruct a shared strategic frame. Our findings provide important new insights for institutional theory.