“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Nobel Peace Prize Winner

I look to leadership as an outcome because I have learned that it’s in our capacity to lead that we find hope, value and connection.

But leadership always starts with a struggle.

Without challenge, we can’t learn about what matters most. Our big challenges wake us up. They make us appreciate the stuff we’re made of. Then, when we know what’s really important, we have something to offer.

My role is to remind you that you are not alone. You do not come through struggle by yourself. Your resilience is activated by other people…who rely on you to go through struggle. And that, in turn, gives them a reason to step into the struggle with you.

Right now, you may face an important choice. When you get clear about the stand you want to take, inevitably there will be others who will stand with you. I can be one of them.

“If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”

–Maya Angelou
Poet, Memoirist, Civil Rights Activist

Organizational Consultation

This service primarily targets groups, communities and organizations undergoing a specific change effort. I can be an ally who comes alongside your team and offers tools and strategies. I can also offer leadership coaching, but focused on the team efforts rather than individual goals. Length of service depends on the scope of your change effort and the size of your system. Areas of focus can include leadership development, team building, values alignment, supervision and staff development, culture shift and capacity building.

In addition to my private work, I am the Founder and former Executive Director of The Relational Center, a nonprofit community organization that exists to rescue and preserve the important social ties humans depend on for health and well being. With an amazing team of staff, volunteers and collaborators, I have labored to develop innovative tools that promote healthy social connection. I believe we need robust community networks, especially as we face economic, environmental and political crises. So I look for opportunities to build intentional culture, share leadership, and promote resilience. As I was completing my Masters Degree in Social Work at Columbia University in 1995, I got inspired to join the fight against AIDS. My experience in that movement helped me see how much mutual care contributed to enriching so many lives. I understood that the movement itself, with its strong emphasis on collaborative action and wider-thinking, had catalyzed vitality and well being by supplying a social infrastructure that encouraged people to look after one another. Since that time, I dedicated my career to helping people find solidarity and shared purpose. My own leadership comes out of a sensitivity to the pain of isolation and separation and the injustice of marginalization and exclusion. I am convinced that we must rescue our ability to depend on each other… to ensure our own sustainability and the health of our world.

The Solution

Culture reflects values. Values are how we assess what is worth protecting, even when it costs us significantly. Values are what we defend…what we stick our necks out for. The culture we are proliferating every day by organizing all our actions around buying and selling is a culture of consumerism. That culture will eventually distract us from the values of justice we hold dear. So we need to define the kind of culture…habits and customs and practices and rituals…that actually embodies our values. Intentional culture requires that we critique the dominant culture, generate alternative narratives that frame our purpose and future, and participate in daily rituals to keep us engaged in that vision.

Partial Client List

Common Ground – The Westside HIV Community Center
Community Clinic Association of LA County
Esalen Institute
Gestalt Institute of Cleveland
Gestalt Therapy Brisbane
Global Innovation Fund
Latino Justice PRLDEF
Movement Strategy Center
New York Civil Liberties Union
Ohio State Legal Services Association
Radical Aliveness InstituteThe Gestalt Academy, Stockholm
The Relational Center
The Relational Institute Australia (TRIA)
The Westside Shelter and Hunger Coalition

Service Rates