My Background
My life’s work has always been focused on helping people, organizations, and communities achieve positive change and growth. My work has focused on understanding what is going on right now, understanding what is possible, and helping bridge that gap. Here are some highlights of what I’ve done:
I started a nonprofit. In 2003 I was determined to spend my post-graduate school days doing something that mattered, so I read Martha Beck’s book Finding Your Own North Star. As a result of the work I did with that book, I found myself unexpectedly creating a nonprofit that encouraged support of community oriented locally owned independent businesses (www.thinklocalfirst.net). My masters’ degrees (Social Work and Public Policy) were focused on nonprofit/ public management, but I’d have to say I learned more in the five years I ran Think Local First I ever could in any graduate education. I then moved onto the board for an additional five years.
I consulted with nonprofits and businesses. Before, during, and after running Think Local First I worked as a consultant offering evaluation, grant-writing, and organizational and community needs assessment research. In particular I spent five years with Formative Evaluation Research Associates consulting with a wide variety of nonprofits in Michigan and throughout the US. I got to work on exciting projects such as a County-wide Community Needs Assessment for Washtenaw United Way and Washtenaw County. After that I worked in a variety of capacities doing research and consulting about community change, including co-authoring The City of Ann Arbor’s Solar Plan, and writing grants for and with the City of Ann Arbor and other nonprofits for environmental programs.
I got life coach training. After ten years of reading Martha Beck’s books and seeing how much of an impact they’d had on my life, I decided that I wanted to go deeper, and the only way to do that was to sign up for life coach training. And thus I began an amazing eight month process of learning how to help people see and shift aspects of their life that weren’t working as they would like to them to work, as well as an introduction to an amazing network of coaches.
What Gets Me Up in the Morning
- Helping people reconnect to the part of themselves that is here to serve others and heal the world.
- Helping people SEE all of the possibilities in the world. I’ve always been able to feel the world that wants to be born, and I love helping other people move from wanting to create a world/self/business just slightly different than what already exists, to a bigger, more awe inspiring vision.
- Helping people shift the way they organize their lives and their organizations so that there is space to grow; space for beauty; space for kindness; space for… space.
- Helping people understand the link between internal and external growth. I see many nonprofits and activists trying to heal the world, who are unhealed themselves, and thus accidentally perpetuate the very problems and structures they are trying to shift. To heal the world, we need to start with ourselves AND our organizations.
To be honest, though, on other mornings coffee and my cat Pika are the surest bets for getting me out of bed.
Interested? Work with me.
