Led civic engagement processes involving tens of thousands of citizens in community-driven planning processes and catalyzed billions of dollars in sustainable development that led to community transformations in a diverse array of jurisdictions. Built international partnerships and delivered workshops and public processes in over a dozen countries across 5 continents. Provided consultative services to hundreds of communities globally and led processes in the US covering communities across 38 states. The work has been cited in several book projects as a model of success for producing successful outcomes using integrative democratic methodology. Produced short films covering impact that received over 100K views. Co-chaired the Remaking Cities Congress, an international convening on the future of post-industrial cities. Co-chaired Civic Engagement in American Climate Policy, a national convening on integrating democratic strategies into climate action at the federal level. Served as a subject matter expert on issues related to the connections between civic capacity, democracy, urbanism and a host of issues for a range of local government audiences. Co-designed Urban Thinkers Campus for the World Urban Campaign that involved participants across 6 continents in a conversation around building more inclusive, equitable cities. Delivered lectures and training to universities across 5 continents on democracy and civic capacity.

Led consulting practice focused on community-based facilitation, including visioning and strategic planning, collaborative problem-solving, systems reform and capacity-building work with public and private organizations. Designed successful effort for a coalition of non-profit organizations to gain support for racial equity program that was a national news story. Led communications, messaging, press conferences, handled media relations and served as coalition spokesperson in national media. Led a 12-month public process including dozens of public workshops and meetings with neighborhood groups and citizens. Provided suite of support to develop Master Education Plans for urban school systems. Provided technical assistance, including system-wide assessment, white-paper development, facilitation of executive staff retreats, and public workshops for public sector clients. Provided facilitation and strategic consulting services to non-profit organizations, including strategic planning and board retreats. Delivered training on public participation methods to networks of practitioners. Delivered research, facilitation and technical advisory services.

Led team providing portfolio of systems reform and emergency management support for the National Incident Management System Integration Center (NIC) at FEMA, a new federal initiative. Developed and facilitated processes for national partnerships and working groups of emergency management associations and organizations to build consensus on the adoption of emergency management standards and credentialing systems to enhance preparedness and response. Engaged subject matter experts and practitioners in the field to produce consensus on key systems reform areas in emergency management. Provided research and analysis support to FEMA on a host of emergency management issues. Managed public process of diverse institutional stakeholders to achieve consensus on initial credentialing and standards for emergency management. Expanded staff and consultants to include a broad array of assets supporting client services, including daily site presence and on-call expertise across over a dozen emergency management areas.

Led the launch of the Family Strengthening Policy Center, a new national initiative to build a constituency for family-strengthening policy by building a coalition of over 60 national organizations in the youth and family strengthening fields. Designed a stakeholder-driven policy development process to leverage innovative practice in the field into new policy proposals. Conducted national surveys with practitioners and national member organizations, and authored reports on opinion in the field. Led national research initiative focused on innovative family-strengthening practices and analyzed policy implications. Organized national meeting of policy and practice leaders to build consensus on a national strategy for family policy. Leveraged existing foundation work to gain additional funding for non-profit toolkit and national campaign to increase use of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income families.

Served as technical consultant to municipalities on visioning and strategic planning, local governance and democracy, civic engagement and leadership, performance measurement, capacity building, social capital, cultural competency and a host of urban issues. Authored guides, toolkits, articles and handbooks on a host of issues for municipalities and community organizations across the country. Staffed national network of performance management organizations working on municipal and civic health indicators. Managed national network of municipal programs focused on juvenile justice systems reform as a part of a national demonstration program for the United States Department of Justice. Organized national advocacy event promoting a National Civic Participation Week honoring the victims of September 11th, which led to successful passage. Designed and organized the National Conference on Governance, a summit on digital democracy. Delivered an analysis of National League of Cities annual reports on democratic participation in cities with recommendations for future policy.

Managed technical assistance and democratization programming to parliaments, political parties, governments, civic organizations, and regional political bodies. Scope of work included human rights, comparative constitutional design and governing systems, voter and civic education, civic engagement and participation, election monitoring and administration, political party training, ethics and capacity building with democratic institutions and civic organizations. Managed portfolio of grants to national civic organizations in southern Africa. Brought high-level delegations to the U.S. and facilitated training and educational content with government officials, governance, campaign and election experts. Expanded organizational profile and programming by leveraging existing work to win new grants and contracts with USAID and other international funders, managing a multi-million dollar portfolio of contracts.