Betsy Morris Email and Phone Number

Consultant providing applied research and technical assistance for regional and urban planning in areas of sustainability, community economic development, affordable housing, and the sharing economy. Social entrepreneur and network organizer for grassroots community development initiatives, such as cohousing, cooperative housing,and ecovillages. Experiential educator, designer, and facilitator of interactive talks, trainings, and conferences in participatory governance, open budgeting, and shared leadership grops.

Organize trainings and educational events on intentional community development for cohousing, cooperatives, eco-villages, and coworking centers. Provide individual and group consultation on development, financing and investing, and group development processes. East Bay Cohousing is the web's largest meetup group for people living in, seeking, and creating intentional communities; it is one of a family of meetup groups managed under the umbrella of Planning for Sustainable Communities.

Provide comprehensive community assessments, policy research, and related project specific technical assistance for anti-poverty agencies (CAA and HeadStart) in California and other parts of the US. Policy and academic resaerch on anti-poverty and related issues. Current interests in wealth and income generation strategies, impacts of complementary currencies, and asset development through cooperatives, barter, shared equity housing.

Founding network member of association of academic and applied researchers on cohousing. Share data and research findings, collaborate to support other researchers interested in intentional communities, affiliated with Institute for the Advanced Study of the Commons, Alternatives to Capitalism subgroup/SASE, PURPLSOC/PUAR (Pattern Languages), AASHE, Research in Community/Global Ecovillage Network, Cohousing Network of the UK, and the International Communal Studies Association.

www.ic.org

Services include:Advise on New Economy/Sharing Economy strategies and capital access.Identify strategic partners and sectoral opportunities (urban farming, local foods)Demographic and economic analysis for strategic development and marketingRepresent clients' interests (micro-enterprise and business training, low-income households, immigrants, refugees) in economic development planning venues.

California's longest running social justice lobby, founded by Quakers in 1953. Over 10 years, I served as a Meeting representative, member and then Clerk of Outreach and Development, and then Statewide Clerk. My contributions included financial planning, fundraising, outreach, as well as executive oversight of staff.

4 month employment contract to complete project funded by California Energy Commission (PIERS Office): Comprehensive research and policy analysis of transportation and land use strategies for reducing GHG emissions for the California Energy Commission; results to be used for a website that will assist California cities and counties seeking to fund projects under SB375 Sustainable Communities initiatives. (4 month term position).

Created this volunteer position to assist Coho/US: Liaison with researcher contacts to Coho/USDeveloped first Coho/US research agenda (embedded in member forum);Produced 2007 and 2008 Cohousing Census (with Craig Ragland). Researched, wrote, trained others on affordability strategies; state of the movement. Public speaking on cohousing movement at regional and national conferences.

Managed academic and business affairs for relaunch of the first accredited MBA program in Sustainable Enterprity. Redesigned a 2-year curriculum, prepared budgets, recruited faculty, students, and institutional partners. Program relaunch was deferred due to a college-wide crisis, that eventually led to the closure of this remarkable institution n 2008. New College had a 30+ year run and international reputation for its unique programs and committment to social justice and student-centered pedogogies.

Varied responsibilities as board officer and staff to a grassroots board of residents. Activities included: strategic planning, business planning, community organizing, affordable housing advocacy, and representative in multi-stakeholder collaborations. Successful WBNDC projects included: West Berkeley Neighborhood Pride Guide; Community Cares Service Bank; West Berkeley Festival Marketplace; West and South Berkeley Community and Business mixers; Get Down to Business resource and training nights; www.westberkeley.com; annual West Berkeley community meetings; and Berkeley International Food Festival. Other projects included collaborative studies for Berkeley Kitchens (proposed commercial kitchen incubator); Berkeley Industrial Greenhouse (Urban Ore and City of Berkeley). Developed and managed partnerships and contracts with City of Berkeley (varied departments), UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission, BOSS, Berkeley Ecology Center, and Urban Habitat.

2005. Secured resources for transit oriented development planning; created partnerships for TOD; inventoried redevelopment sites; analyzed local business trends and resources; liaison to the public, local Chamber of Commerce, helped staff the El Cerrito Economic Development Commission.

Managed staff-led programs and developed plans and new partnerships to carry out workforce development, micro-enterprise, housing access agendas. Trained community leaders and outreach workers in resources for household assistance and political advocacy, in response to changing funder-directed opportunities.

Contributed to ongoing studies of intelligent transportation systems, transit-based carsharing, and bus rapid transit. Prepared research briefs on transit design and information technologies; developed prototype concepts for BRT "smart bus stops." Helped design and manage a bilingual field survey of 1000 bus passengers for Santa Clara Valley Transit, funded by CalTrans.

Designed courses for undergrads and grad students in community development and sustainable neighborhood redevelopment. Frequent speaker in Dept. of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley on community development, poverty, and intentional communities.Classes/Deoartments/InstitutionsSpring, 1999, "Sustainable Redevleopment in West Berkeley", DCRP, UC BerkeleySummer 1997, Fall, 1996, Summer, 1996: Introduction to The City, Dept. of Political Science, San Francisco State UniversitySummer, 1995, "Community Development in the Bay Area," American Studies Program, University of California, BerkeleySpring, 1995: "History of Cities" and Introduction to Urban Planning and Development"; Dept. of Urban Planning and Real Estate, University of Southern California

Prepared policy briefs, analyzed survey data, wrote and edited reports published by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Development, Institute for Urban and Regional Development and Institute for Western European Studies.

Varied freelance and intern projects for community economic development corporations and technical assistance intermediaries in the San Francisco Bay Area

Managed databases and network systems for federal studies of health care and economic policy.

Managed legislative interns, organized events for grassroots organizing & advocacy.

Data management and statistical programming for longitudinal study of problem oriented systems of treatment funded by NIMH. Systems programming and related support for research and evaluation department.