Co-Creative Consulting, Facilitation & Coaching

Consulting

Co-Creating Transformative Organizations

Organizations are seeking to evolve and transform so that they are aligned with their values and have the impact that they want in the world. They want to care for their employees and the community by creating structures and culture that increase agency, ownership, and balance. They are deepening their creativity and collaboration.  

We support organizations, businesses, cooperatives, and networks with consulting and facilitation.  We start by listening to where you are at and what your needs are for your organization. Then we co-create a plan for evolution and transformation.   We bring creativity, flexibility, diverse tools, experiences, and resources to any situation and work with clients to create new projects, processes, and possibilities. 

Emergent Strategy & Creative Planning:

  • Create strategic frameworks and plans for co-creation
  • Provide direction and vision with out becoming rigid or constricting
  • Engage your team and community in designing your future

Business Planning

  • Businesses, cooperatives and nonprofits develop their business model
  • Develop plans for start-up and growth. 
  • Explore your value proposition to your customers and community

Cooperative Startup and Conversion

  • Starting worker, producer or community owned cooperatives
  • Develop democratic governance and management
  • Support to convert an existing business to a worker co-op or community ownership

Creating Power Sharing & Collaborative Structure

  • Develop new shared leadership models
  • Decentralized power and decision making with clear roles and accountabilities

Project Development & Management

  • Support to bring a project from the idea phase to implementation.
  • Bring together elements, resources, people and actions
  • Create actionable plans.

Community Participation, Visioning and Planning

  • Develop process to listen to the community and have them at the decision making table
  • Create more equitable projects organizations and community.
  • Support in community visioning processes

Solutions Customized for You

Food System Consulting

With over 20 years in all aspects of the food system, we can support a wide range of work in the food system.  We have experience in restaurants and food services, farm to institution, food processing, farming and farmland access, food system philanthropy, community gardening, local food councils, food policy, teaching cooking, gardening and nutrition, and more.  

“Energy to put vision into practice”

I worked with Jonah over the course of a year to develop and co-teach the Maine Cooperative Developer training program.  Jonah had participated in s similar program as a participant and was excited to turn around and teach what he had learned to others in his community.  Jonah prepared well, was a clear and inspiring facilitator, was a model of generosity, and demonstrated hands-down his commitment to growing the cooperative ecosystem in Maine.  I admire Jonah’s energy to put his vision into practice.  He is one of the most community-minded people I have ever met and I would work with him again in a second.

— Rebecca Bauen, Education and Training Director, Democracy at Work Institute

“Jonah put trust in us”

Jonah was instrumental in helping our grassroots organization at the time when we were starting our organizations, Jonah was one of the people who put trust in us even though we did not know what we were doing.

Jonah sat in many of our discussions, gave us training, and helped us form collaboration among our people while all of these were foreign to our people. Without Jonah and many people like him, we would not have been where we are today.

— Muhidin Libah, Somali Bantu Community Association

“Promoting the Human Spirit”

Jonah’s commitment to social change endeavors has always included attention to promoting the human spirit. The combination of his professional skills and experiences, along with his own spiritual development, has provided a distinctive base for guiding individuals, organizations, and businesses in enhancing community life. His focus on innovative cooperative endeavors addressing themes of racial and economic equity, are among issues of importance to him and vital for positive change given the divisive, disconnected qualities of our dominant culture.

-Bonnie Rukin, former coordinator Slow Money Maine

“Helped us reach our goal of creating a truly informative and engaging day for participants

The Maine Flower Collective hired Jonah to facilitate our first true gathering as a newly formed Collective.  Due to Covid, we had to move our Convergence online and Jonah was an excellent leader in helping us reach our goal of creating a truly informative and engaging day for participants, despite not being able to be in person.  Jonah was able to guide our group of volunteers through the process of planning and executing an online conference, and he did it with a wonderful, collaborative energy.  We truly enjoyed working with Jonah and would hire him again in the future.

— Sarah Lutte, Maine Flower Collective

“A strong facilitator with the skills to help any collaborative project evolve”

“Jonah is a great contributor in the cooperative ecosystem in the Northeast. His facilitation style brings ease and focus to spaces he holds for group work, particularly in diverse communities, and he is technically adept in many areas of business and organizational development. All around, he is a strong facilitator with the skills to help any collaborative project evolve.”

— Katherine Bessey, Director of Cooperative Business Services, Cooperative Development Institute

Past & Current Projects

The following are examples of some of the projects that I have worked on as a developer or consultant. More current projects will be added.

Good Medicine Collective, Consultant

Supported the evolution of the holistic healthy and consciousness organization through a major transition to develop a new hybrid collective structure

2023-2024

Sustainable Livelihoods Relief Organization, Consultant

Facilitating strategic planning and staff and board development, training and coaching for a small Somali organization in Lewiston, Maine. 2024

Brooklyn Psychedelic Society, Consultant

Supported the organization in developing a worker self-directed nonprofit structure through training, governance development and bylaws creation.

2022-2024

New Roots Cooperative Farm, Developer

Supported a group of Somali Bantu farmers to develop Maine’s first immigrant owned farm on 30 acres of land in Lewiston, Maine.

2014-2020

Isuken Co-op, Developer

Supported Somali Bantu farmers in forming a food truck featuring farm to table Somali food in Lewiston, Maine.

2015-2020

Cooperative Maine Business Alliance, Developer

Supported the development of a cross-sector network of cooperatives organized around shared learning, marketing and purchasing. 2015-2020