Pronouns
they/them
What do you do as a consultant/coach?
My work is grounded in helping clients make significant, measurable shifts that result in lasting culture change. I design and facilitate high impact processes that are goal focused and flexible according to the dynamics and emerging needs of the organization. Projects fall predominantly within these areas:
- Leadership Development and Coaching: I support board development, leadership teams, and executive transitions. I also provide individual coaching to people at all levels of the organization.
- Team Effectiveness: High performing teams increase impact, engagement, and satisfaction. I support internal teams (staff and board), as well as cross-organizational teams via coalitions and strategic partnerships.
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: I bring a trauma-informed equity lens to all of my work. When enacted, this value means that I identify, assess, and work to eradicate organizational barriers to equity so that clients actualize their ultimate vision of social justice. My approach encourages organizations and coalitions to become inclusive of and responsive to differences at all levels of systems.
- Strategic Planning: I ensure relevant and dynamic strategic plans by designing processes that reflect clients’ unique needs and resources. I facilitate one-time planning sessions and full-fledged strategic planning projects. Strategic planning may include organizational assessments; mission, vision, and value statements; infrastructure development (policies and procedures); sustainability planning; and implementation support, among others.
- Workshops: I provide custom designed workshop in all of the areas mentioned above and more. Just ask!
What is your approach?
- Coaching: I am a deep believer that coaching is for you. You are in the driver’s seat. We can dive deeply into your inner world and explore the parts of you that are blocking who you want to be, or we can keep coaching focused on the external world and troubleshoot scenarios you are facing. You know best what you need and are ready for.
- Organizational Change: When approaching organizational change, the most important aspects of success are getting the right people engaged in the right ways, setting the container for success, and exploring the right questions. To ensure we have the right people engaged in the right ways and are asking the right questions, I start with a “discovery phase” that involves hearing many different voices and perspectives throughout the organization. This process allows me to have a deeper 360 degree view of the organization and what change is desired. Where we go after the discovery phase is determined by what is learned during that process. Projects vary greatly, and most involve one or more staff/board retreats to dig into key questions in person together. I have a flexible style that allows me to adapt to each organization’s unique needs.
How has your experience/background contributed to your work?
After many years of street-based activism and volunteer organizing, I started my paid career as an Executive Director of an LGBTQ+ nonprofit. Like many people, I found myself in a leadership position without the experience and skills I needed. I learned to write grants because they were due. I learned to supervise staff because they needed guidance and direction. Throughout my life I have enjoyed mediation, facilitation, and other healing processes. In 2006, while still working as an Executive Director, I pursued a master’s degree in organization development, the study of how to create culture change in organizations. (My undergraduate degree was in Peace and Global studies—the study of how to create nonviolent social movements.) I was able to combine the knowledge and skills I gained in graduate school with my experience in social change activism and went out on my own as a consultant and coach in 2008, and later co-founded Banyan Coaching and Consulting with Monique Meadows. For the past seventeen years, I have been supporting mission driving organizations to build internal cultures where people can thrive. I am fortunate to still love my work after all these years. It is a gift to be able to support such incredible organizations and groups who are working to create a better future for everyone.
Relevant certifications or trainings
I earned a master’s degree in Organization Development from American University, where I was awarded a Segal-Seashore Fellowship for my commitment to social justice, and hold a bachelor’s degree in Peace and Global Studies from Earlham College. I am a certified leadership coach and have additional training in Parts Work/Internal Family Systems—a coaching approach that promotes sustainable behavior changes through inner healing.
Confronted by the lack of organizational models applicable to nonprofits, I created the Nonprofit Organizational Model©, a model that simplifies organizational assessments and strategic planning. I am also author of The Struggles, Experiences and Needs of Children in LGBTQ Families. I am a qualified administrator and interpreter of the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator® (MBTI), StrengthsFinder and LIFO® assessments.
Sample clients
350.org, ACLU-PA, Basic Rights Oregon, Human Rights Campaign, Jobs with Justice, National Domestic Violence Hotline, Outward Bound California, Philadelphia Youth Commission, Resource Generation, Roswell Foundation, Transgender Law Center