Author Biographies

Al Etmanski
Al Etmanski

Al Etmanski is a curator, author, blogger (www.aletmanski.com), advocate and social entrepreneur specializing in innovative, multi-sector solutions to complex societal challenges. Al is currently a partner in the J W McConnell Family Foundation&rsqu… read more »

Alan D. Mutter

Alan D. Mutter is a consultant specializing in corporate initiatives and new media ventures involving journalism and technology and also serves on the adjunct faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He comments  on the technological developme… read more »

Alan Roxburgh
Alan Roxburgh

Alan Roxburgh is a pastor, teacher, writer and consultant with more than 30 years experience in church leadership, consulting and seminary education.  Alan has pastored congregations in a small town, the suburbs, the re-development of a downtown urban church and the planting of other c… read more »

Amy Dean
Amy Dean

Amy Dean is a fellow of The Century Foundation and principal of ABD Ventures, LLC, a consulting firm that works to develop new organizing strategies for social change organizations. Dean is co-author, with David Reynolds, of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape… read more »

Anne Stadler
Anne Stadler

Anne Stadler is an independent consultant, an Associate of the Sunyata Group, which offers consultancy services and projects that support self-organizing individual and collective leadership that transforms people, communities and the living environment from surviving to thriving presence. She is… read more »

April Doner
April Doner

April Doner lives and works as a Roving Illustrator, telling stories of community thriving, abundance, and people-powered change through writing, photography and art. Originally from the wave-kissed east coast of Florida, April has found her way to Indianapolis, IN to join community-based… read more »

Ashley Cooper
Ashley Cooper

Ashley Cooper facilitates opportunities for people to have meaningful connections with themselves, each other, their purpose, their environment and the greater whole.  She supports individuals and groups in their efforts to live more vibrantly, bring visions into action and collaborate… read more »

Benedict Carey

Benedict Carey is a science reporter for The New York Times.… read more »

Bill Berkowitz, Ph.D.
Bill Berkowitz, Ph.D.

Bill is a community psychologist who has been writing about, teaching about, creating, and directing neighborhood and community service programs for more than 30 years. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology since the 1970s at the University of Massachusetts Lowell … read more »

Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan
Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan

Bill Kauth and Zoe Alowan are active learners and teachers of the concepts and processes of Gift Community. Together they have delivered 45 Gift Community seminars around the world and co-authored the book … read more »

Bill Weaver
Bill Weaver

Bill Weaver is a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and journalist, media strategist, speaker and facilitator, with over three decades of experience creating meaningful content for US and Canadian television. His films build bridges of understanding across economic and environmental lines, and explo… read more »

Bob Stilger
Bob Stilger

Bob Stilger, Ph.D. is a conversation host, teacher, speaker, consultant, facilitator and coach who has spent 35 years building strong and vibrant organizations and communities. For 25 years he was the Executive Director of Northwest Regional Facilitators, an innovative community development corpo… read more »

Brenton Crozier
Brenton Crozier

Brenton Crozier is multimedia producer, wordsmith and "music man" for State of the Re-Union. He started as a print journalism major and shifted to website copywriting and content editing early in h… read more »

Bruce Anderson
Bruce Anderson

Bruce Anderson is a nationally recognized speaker, community activist and leadership coach.  Equally at home in remote villages and urban communities, he is known for blending old stories and wisdom, along with modern organizing strategies, into the asset-based community development and so… read more »

Cathy Park

Cathy Park is an author, facilitator and entrepreneur, helping people create lives that are passionate, productive and profitable. She is learning daily the art of gentle being and artful doing. Contact her on:cathy@cathypark.co.za… read more »

Charles Holmes
Charles Holmes

Charles Holmes is a master convener, gifted facilitator, skilled educator and empathetic coach. Described by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, as a “true social alchemist,” Charles has designed and facilitated collaborative strategic meetings and multi-stakeholder dialogu… read more »

Clare Goff
Clare Goff

Clare Goff is deputy editor of NewStart, a UK monthly magazine about how to make the places we live in better.… read more »

Communities First Association
Communities First Association

The Communities First Association is part of a national movement created to bring about holistic transformation at the grass-roots level. Communities First's goal is to help churches, orga… read more »

Dan Duncan
Dan Duncan

Dan Duncan is a consultant and faculty member of the Asset Based Community Development Institute, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. His website is http://www.hdanielsduncanconsulting.org/ … read more »

Dave Cooper
Dave Cooper

The Rev. N. David (Dave) Cooper is an Asset Based (strengths-based) Community Development practitioner and a consultant with communities, congregations, organizations and institutions that want to strengthen their capacity, competence, and commitment to work for and achieve social, economic, spir… read more »

Dave Soleil
Dave Soleil

Dave Soleil is an experienced leadership educator who has taken his leadership lessons out of the classroom and put them to work solving a crisis that affects millions of people around the world. He founded an organization called "Leadership for a Healthier World" that is working to reverse the o… read more »

Duane Elgin
Duane Elgin

Duane Elgin is an internationally recognized author, speaker, and trans-partisan media activist. He is the director of the Great Transition Stories project that, in turn, is a project … read more »

Edd Conboy
Edd Conboy

Edd Conboy is Director of Social Services and the Counseling Center at Broad Street Ministry and Senior Staff Therapist at the Council for Relationships in Philadel… read more »

Edgar Cahn
Edgar Cahn

Edgar Cahn is a longstanding social activist, the originator of Time Dollars, the creator of the Co-Production principle, the founder of TimeBanksUSA, co-founder of… read more »

Ferrell Foster
Ferrell Foster

“It’s easy for some people to say what they do,” says Ferrell Foster, “but my place in this world is a bit more complicated.” "I’m sort of a minister, but not of a church; sort of a writer, but I haven't ha… read more »

Gerard Ee
Gerard Ee

Gerard Ee is Executive Director of Beyond Social Services in Singapore. … read more »

Hannah Brencher
Hannah Brencher

Hannah Brencher is the 24-year-old founder of The World Needs More Love Letters, a global love letter writing organization that harnesses the power behind social media to write and mail love letters to individuals a… read more »

Ian Macdonald

Ian Macdonald is the former editor of the website South Africa The Good News. http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/… read more »

Jack Pearpoint
Jack Pearpoint

Jack Pearpoint is an international educator, author, publisher and advocate for social change. He is the Founder and Director of … read more »

Jamie Vollmer
Jamie Vollmer

Jamie Vollmer is an award-winning champion of public education, and the author of the highly acclaimed book Schools Cannot Do It Alone. He has spent the last twenty years working with school districts, educat… read more »

Jan Bennett
Jan Bennett

Jan Bennett, Digital Content Editor and Social Media Coordinator at State of the Re-Union, spent many years collecting vocational talents and skills from various work environments. After realizing that her natural curio… read more »

Jason Roberts
Jason Roberts

Jason Roberts is a small business owner, community leader, and founder of The Better Block Project, a national movement that cities around the world are now embracing to help revitalize blighted and under developed neighborhoods. Throug… read more »

Jeffrey Bordelon
Jeffrey Bordelon

Jeffrey Bordelon is a founder and director of PlacerSustain,  a nonprofit organization in Placer County, CA dedicated to "connecting people and inspiring collaboration to build healthy communities and thriving local economies." He has been a practicing attorney and land use planner for … read more »

Jennifer Sommerness
Jennifer Sommerness

Jennifer Sommerness is an educational consultant, teacher and advocate with a background in inclusive education, educational administration and staff development. She works with teachers, administrators and families to create collaborative school cultures and engaging school experiences for … read more »

Jill J. Jensen
Jill J. Jensen

Jill J. Jensen is the founder of an independent agency specializing in communication strategy, writing / editorial services, and production for print and electronic media. A pioneer in collaborating with virtual teams, Jill has worked with for-profit and not-for-profit businesses of all sizes, in… read more »

Jill Janov

Jill Janov is a probono consultant with nonprofit organizations that seek to develop organizational capacity and the person at work. Jill applies her 36 years of consulting experience — in private, public, and government organizations — to enhance the public sector's engagem… read more »

Jim Diers
Jim Diers

Participatory democracy has been Jim Diers’ preoccupation and his career for the past 36 years. In his work with grassroots community organizations and with government and other large agencies, Jim has found ways to get more people engaged with their community and more involved in decisions… read more »

Jim Welling
Jim Welling

JIm Welling is a lifelong resident of northern Indiana. Most of his professional life has been lived as an educator—teacher, principal, staff developer, consultant. His interests include healthy family development, travel, photography and bringing attention to "wrong headed" education… read more »

Jimmy Toyama

Jimmy Toyama is a retired public servant who writes a monthly column for “The Paradise Post,” a monthly reader published on the Island of Hawaii.  His column “Nurturing Our Taro Patches” captures and tells the many rich and colorful stories that form the mosaic of com… read more »

Joan Horwitt

Joan Horwitt is the founder of LAWNS 2 LETTUCE 4 LUNCH® and chairs a leadership team of local residents.  A former Arlington County teacher and school volunteer, she wrote a weekly dining column for the Washington Post for nearly a decade.… read more »

Joe Erpenbeck
Joe Erpenbeck

Joe works in the disabilities world for a large county board. Within this system he has created a small team of people who are moving from providing services to building community. In his case, community is built around individuals whom we used to call the “disabled.” His group is ale… read more »

John McClaughry
John McClaughry

John McClaughry is currently Vice President of The Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont's free-market public policy research and education organization, having as its founding President since 1993. He is a widely p… read more »

John McKnight
John McKnight

John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer… read more »

John McKnight and Peter Block
John McKnight and Peter Block

John L. McKnight was raised a traveling Ohioan, having lived in seven neighborhoods and small towns in the eighteen years before he left to attend Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. There, he had the good fortune to be educated by a faculty dedicated to preparin… read more »

Juanita Brown
Juanita Brown

Co-founder of the World Café and co-author of the award-winning World Café book, Juanita is a thinking partner for senior leaders acros… read more »

Judith Snow
Judith Snow

 Judith Snow, MA, is a social inventor and an advocate for Inclusion - communities that welcome the participation of a wide diversity of people. Her internationally recognized work includes consulting and workshops on person centered planning, personal assistance, support circle building, fa… read more »

Julie Cunningham

Julie Cunningham is the editor of the website South Africa The Good News. http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/… read more »

Karen Lehman
Karen Lehman

Karen Lehman is the director of Fresh Taste, a funder collaborative formed by several Illinois foundations and the City of Chicago to relocalize Chicago’s food system and improve equity of access to good fo… read more »

Katherine Gustafson

Katherine Gustafson is a freelance writer and editor based in the Washington, DC area. Her first book, Change Comes to Dinner, about sustainable food, was published this month by St. Martin's Press. … read more »

Kevin "Doc" Klein
Kevin "Doc" Klein

Doc Klein was an Outward Bound instructor and facilitator for close to thirty years before starting the consulting firm Uncharted Territories Inc. His work has focused largely on working with communities and organizations to create and implement their visions of the future. Using sys… read more »

Kristian Partington
Kristian Partington

Kristian Partington is a Generative Journalist with Axiom News. Axiom is a life-giving news network for a renewed and thriving world with a mission to provide Generative Journalism services to org… read more »

Laura Fulton
Laura Fulton

Laura Fulton is an educator who is passionate about communities in all forms. She has lived, worked and volunteered on four continents. Laura has taught learners from elementary children to adults. She has worked primarily in schools but has also fostered learning on archaeological sites, … read more »

Leslie Osborn

Leslie Osborn an independent consultant who works with leaders committed to making critical changes in their organizations.  Her consulting practice is grounded in 20+ years of line leadership in Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Amazon.com and Gannett/USA Today.  Her broad bu… read more »

Leslie Stephen
Leslie Stephen

Leslie Stephen is the editor of The Abundant Community book and website.… read more »

Louise van Rhyn
Louise van Rhyn

Louise van Rhyn is an organization change practitioner with a focus on large scale change in complex social systems. She has worked with diverse local and global organizations, across all sectors, in many countries. She is the founder of Symphonia for South Africa, a group of organizations commit… read more »

Margaret Rahn

Margaret Rahn is a long time fan of Peter Block’s six conversations and is intrigued by the creative potential of the Connector’s practice.  Margaret lives in farm country of Sunman, India… read more »

Margot Adler

Margot Adler is a National Public Radio correspondent based in NPR's New York Bureau.… read more »

Maria Popova
Maria Popova

Maria Popova is the founder and editor of Brain Pickings, "a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are." S… read more »

Mark Andrew Boyer
Mark Andrew Boyer

Mark Andrew Boyer is a photographer and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Born in Buffalo, NY, he studied literature at the University of Chicago and was the co-founder of OrganicNation.tv. He is an editor for Inhabitat, and his work h… read more »

Mary Nelson
Mary Nelson

Mary Nelson was for 27 years the founding President and CEO of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation focused on its low-income, African-American west-side Chicago community. Under her leadership the organization grew from an annual budget of $9,600 to more than $14… read more »

Melissa Lee
Melissa Lee

After completing a bachelor’s degree in studio art and having no idea what to do next, Melissa decided the only logical step was to buy a round-the-world ticket and travel for nine months.  Somewhere along the way in India, an oracle healer told her to “just pick something and do… read more »

Meredith McNair
Meredith McNair

Meredith McNair hails from Cincinnati, Ohio and was an intern with abundantcommunity.com in the summer of 2011. She is now a full-time student on an academic scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where she majors in urban studies.… read more »

Michelle Strutzenberger
Michelle Strutzenberger

Michelle Strutzenberger is Newsroom Chair at Axiom News. Axiom is a life-giving news network for a renewed and thriving world with a mission to provide Generative Journalism services to organizations. Generative Journalism is fo… read more »

Mikala Woodward

Mikala Woodward of Seattle was one of the first to send us a story of community abundance.… read more »

Mike Mather
Mike Mather

Mike Mather is the pastor at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. It is his second tenure at Broadway. He served there from 1986-1991 and then he was sent to serve another church named Broadway in South Bend. He came back to the Indianapolis Broadway UMC in 2003. Mike is the author o… read more »

Mike McGrath
Mike McGrath

Mike McGrath is senior editor and chief information officer for the National Civic League. A former newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he is editor of the quarterly National Civic Review, which will be beginning its centennial year of publishing this spring. He writes regular blog posts for … read more »

Nancy Sleeth
Nancy Sleeth

Nancy Sleeth is the author of Almost Amish: One Woman's Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life and co-founder of the fait… read more »

Patrice Gaines
Patrice Gaines

Patrice Gaines is an author and motivational speaker, co-founder of the Brown Angel Center, and a former Washington Post reporter. Her books include … read more »

Paul Born
Paul Born

Paul Born is the award-winning president and co-founder of Tamarack: An Institute for Community Engagement, which advances plac… read more »

Peggy Holman
Peggy Holman

Since 1991, Peggy Holman has supported organizations and communities to uncover creative responses to complex challenges by using innovative engagement processes. … read more »

Peter Block
Peter Block

In addition to The Abundant Community, co-authored with John McKnight, Peter Block is the author of Flawless Consulting, Community, Stewardship and The Answer to How Is Yes. He serves on the boards of Elementz, a hip hop center for urban youth; Cincinnati Public Ra… read more »

Peter Block and John McKnight
Peter Block and John McKnight

John L. McKnight was raised a traveling Ohioan, having lived in seven neighborhoods and small towns in the eighteen years before he left to attend Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. There, he had the good fortune to be educated by a faculty dedicated to preparin… read more »

Prucia Buscell

Prucia Buscell is the communications director and staff writer for the Plexus Institute. She is the editor of the Institute's newsletter, emerging, and the weekly Thursday Complexity Post and the organizer and host of P… read more »

Puanani Burgess
Puanani Burgess

Puanani Burgess is a community building facilitator, trainer and consultant in Hawai'i, the US and the Pacific. She is also a poet and cultural translator noted for her experience in community, family and values-based economic development, mediation and storytelling processes and  a board me… read more »

Rachel Oscar
Rachel Oscar

Rachel Oscar is Grassroots Grantmakers’ first AmeriCorps VISTA Member.  She comes to Grassroots Grantmakers from Kenyon College in Gambier, OH where she received a BA in History in 2011.  Rachel is looking… read more »

Raechel Dawson
Raechel Dawson

Raechel Dawson is a reporter for the Kirkland (WA) Reporter. … read more »

Randall Reid
Randall Reid

Randall Reid is County Manager of Alachua County, Florida. He is active in a number of professional associations including the International City Management Association, the Florida City/County Management Association, where he has served as both President and Chairman of the Ethics Committe… read more »

Randy Ripley, AIA
Randy Ripley, AIA

After 25 years as an architect, Randy Ripley, AIA, decided five years ago to take his career in a new direction by starting a company called Arbors Development, LLC i… read more »

Ray Thompson
Ray Thompson

Ray Thompson has worked in a range of professional capacities for respected Chicago area social service agencies and educational institutions His passion  is sparking sustainable and scalable local community change with local people.   His firm, Thompson Community Relations Group, … read more »

Rex Lai
Rex Lai

Rex Lai, MSOD, is an organization/community development consultant working in management and training capacities in the private, public, and not-for-profit sector.  He focuses on helping organizations and communities discover and unleash their untapped potentia… read more »

Richard C. Harwood
Richard C. Harwood

Rich Harwood is a leading authority on improving America’s communities, raising standards of political conduct and re-engaging citizens on complex and controversial public issues. He is a frequent contributor to national and syndicated media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, The Christian Scien… read more »

Ron Dwyer-Voss
Ron Dwyer-Voss

Ron Dwyer-Voss is a member of the Stewardship Team of ABCD in Action.… read more »

Ross Chapin
Ross Chapin

Ross Chapin, FAIA, is an architect based on Whidbey Island, WA and author of Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small Scale Community in a Large Scale World (… read more »

Sarah van Gelder
Sarah van Gelder

Sarah van Gelder is co-founder and executive editor of YES! Magazine, a national, independent media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world.… read more »

Seth Resler

Seth Resler is with Linkage, a global organizational development company that specializes in leadership development.… read more »

Shankar Vedantam
Shankar Vedantam

Shankar Vedantam is a science correspondent for NPR. The focus of his reporting is on human behavior and the social sciences, and how research in those fields can get listeners to think about the news in unusual and interesting ways. … read more »

Shawn Gavin
Shawn Gavin

From Shawn's first blog: Recently, I created an opportunity to make a difference in my community. I ran for city council and won! Although political campaigning and holding public office is not on my resume, I have marketing experience, enthusiasm and passion. Add a dash of magic and mayb… read more »

Shira Golding

Shira Golding is co-founder Share Tompkins, which helps people share and trade goods and services in Ithaca and Tompkins County, New York. The volunteer-run group was formed through an open community meeting on May 7, 2009. It maintains a … read more »

Steve Byers
Steve Byers

Based in the Pacific Northwest, Steve Byers consults with leadership teams, organizations and other communities seeking to establish or renew their essential conversation.  His passion is helping human systems think, learn, and work together — better.  Steve is a gra… read more »

Steve Schmidt
Steve Schmidt

Steve Schmidt writes about East San Diego County (CA) and is a longtime resident of the region. In his 25-plus years in the area, he has also written at length about education, transportation, local politics and the West. Steve Schmidt: 619-293-1380; Twitter: @steveschmidt1; Facebook:… read more »

Susan Doherty

Susan Doherty works with the Plexus Institute assisting with day-to-day management as well as maintaining blogs and other social media outlets. She previously worked as a project manager for a consulting firm and coordinator for P… read more »

Susan Fleetwood

Susan Fleetwood is OD director at Microsoft Corporation. She is a member of the Alumni Council for the MSOD program of Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management.… read more »

The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change

The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change distills lessons about how to revitalize distressed communities, and helps policymakers, funders, and practitioners create effective strategies for promoting vibrant, racially-equitabl… read more »

The Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation

The Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation partners with resident teams in an underinvested community called the Diamond Neighborhoods in southeastern San Diego, California. Its mission, “Resident Ownership of N… read more »

Themba Maka

Themba Maka is a writer for the website South Africa The Good News. http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/… read more »

Tim Vogt

Tim Vogt is Executive Director of Starfire, a Cincinnati, Ohio, organization which offers programs that address the needs of teens and adults with disabilities. Read … read more »

Tom Dewar
Tom Dewar

Tom Dewar is the co-director of the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Community Change. Prior to coming to the Roundtable, he lived in Bologna, Italy and taught at Johns Hopkins' School for Advanced … read more »

Valisha Reber

Valisha Reber is a wife, mother, and assistant with the Communities First Association who aspires to be a great neighbor.  … read more »

Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann

Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several decades, known throughout the world for his method of combining literary and sociological mo… read more »

William Sparks
William Sparks

William Sparks is a social innovator who designs and implements capacity building activities. He is currently Vice President at ACDI/VOCA (www.acdivoca.org), an international consulting firm that expands social and economic opportunities in over 40 of the le… read more »

Zoe Alowan
Zoe Alowan

 Zoe Alowan and Bill Kauthare active learners and teachers of the concepts and processes of Gift Community. Together they have delivered 45 Gift Community seminars around the world and co… read more »