Kim Howe
Kim Howe, CTF
Profile
Ms. Howe has over 15 years’ experience as a trainer, facilitator, and consultant in stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, and large-scale collaborative system change efforts. She works in a range of diverse multilingual and multicultural settings in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, with special expertise in adult learning, civic participation, community development, and land use planning and development. She champions the power of “with” not “for” approaches, and brings an asset-based lens and an emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion to her work.
Employment History
- Founding Principal – CoCreative Labs
- Manager, International Professional Development Program – University of Omaha
- Human Resource Manager – National Able Network
- Community Education Director – River City Chicago
- Lead Instructor – University of Illinois Center for Literacy
- Adult Education Faculty – City Colleges of Chicago
Competency Areas
- Meeting Design and Facilitation
Design and facilitation for large and small group meetings, retreats and planning sessions. Fostering equitable spaces for diverse groups to build shared understanding, reach consensus about goals, and plan and implement action. Facilitation for sensitive, controversial, or complex issues.
- Stakeholder & Community Engagement
Multi-modal stakeholder outreach and participation efforts, with experience in surveys, focus groups, virtual facilitation and digital decision making tools, large scale events, interviews, messaging strategy, and more. Experience in non-traditional and challenging community engagement, including language, age, and culture barriers; dispersed, asynchronous, or virtual groups; high-stakes public engagement. Public participation policy development.
- Participatory Strategic Planning
Step-by-step guidance through organizational assessment, strategy development, and policy and program development. Use of a variety of models, including ToP Strategic Planning, Real Time Strategic Planning, and Results-Based Accountability.
- Graphic Facilitation
Creation of large-scale imagery and customized, hand drawn graphics to lead groups in organizing ideas and making decisions, memorably illuminate stories, and develop enduring content through visual thinking.
- Collective Impact
Guidance and support for large, multi-stakeholder collective change efforts, from ideation to implementation, including development of shared goals and measurements, gap and overlap analysis and alignment, design of backbone and support structures.
- Community Development & Land Use Planning
Align stakeholders – including planners, engineers, elected officials, business owners, investors, nonprofits and citizens – around shared goals and strategy for development and use of public spaces. Experience in transportation planning, walkable communities, asset-based community development, real estate development, and planning for public health.
- Adult Learning, Curriculum Design, Training and Development
Design and delivery of made-to-order interactive, outcome-oriented training. Special expertise in intercultural communication, leadership, dialogue across difference, diversity and inclusion, and English as a Second Language/low literacy environments. Qualified Trainer of ToP Facilitation Methods, Strategic Planning, and other supporting courses.
- System Mapping
Collaborative processes to engage a wide spectrum of stakeholders in evaluating large-scale systemic issues, mapping key factors, identifying leverage points, and developing intervention strategies.
- User Centered Design
Design and facilitation of interactive product, program, and policy design, rooted in the lived-experiences of the end user or beneficiary, including prototyping and pilots.
Education
- BA, Applied Linguistics – Moody Bible Institute, Chicago
- BA, Teaching English as a Second Language – Moody Bible Institute, Chicago
- Negotiation & Conflict Resolution – Creighton University, Omaha
- Business Administration – University of Illinois at Chicago, Liautaud Graduate School of Business
Professional Associations
- ToP National Network
- Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA)
- International Association of Facilitators (IAF)
- National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD)
- International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
Professional Certification and Awards
- Qualified Trainer – National ToP Trainer’s Network
- Certified ToP Facilitator – Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA)
- TESOL Certification (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)
Publications and Presentations
- Neighborhoods USA Conference (“Building Bridges Between the Public and the Public Sector”)
- TEDxOmaha (“Searching for Purple in a Red and Blue Time”)
- Wayne State College (“The Art of Civil Discourse”)
- ToP National Gathering (“Participatory Logic Model Development”)
- Christian Community Development Association (“ESL for Action: Community Organizing through Collaborative Classrooms”)
- UNO Colloquium on Language Learning (“Light the Room on Fire: The Power of Intentional Inquiry in Adult Education”)
- Illinois TESOL-Bilingual Education Conference
- Chicagoland ESL Ministry Conference (“Participatory ESL Program Design”)
Selected Project List
- Collective Impact + Strategic Planning: Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services
Implementation planning (task timelines, roles, resource requirements) for a State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP) collaboratively created by over 100 stakeholder organizations in the healthcare, insurance, and public health arenas.
- Systems Mapping + Action Planning: Douglas County Department of Health
Systems mapping and strategy development with 60+ stakeholders in the area of housing and development resulting in identification of strategic leverage points for change and possible interventions.
- Strategic Planning + Organizational Change Initiative: Metro Transit
Participatory strategic planning and organizational change process for a federally-funded public transportation agency, involving all 257 employees on asynchronous schedules in a unionized environment. Crafted and executed outreach and communications strategy, including posters, surveys, focus groups, action teams, online and SMS messaging, and large-group facilitated events. Facilitated team building and leadership development activities.
- Collective Impact Planning: American Cancer Society Colorectal Cancer Roundtable
Summit of over 80 stakeholder organizations to develop alignment and action plans (timelines, roles, resource requirements) for identified strategic priorities.
- System Analysis + Intervention Planning: Behavior Health Education Network at University of Nebraska Medical Center
Collaborative process involving 30+ stakeholders in the behavioral and mental health field to create a logic model, identify key system issues and leverage points, and design intervention strategies to increase the availability of Spanish-speaking mental health providers.
- Strategic Planning: Nebraska Biocontainment Unit
Strategic planning for the largest high-security infectious disease treatment center in the nation, currently funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
- Collective Impact Design: Heartland United Way
Large-scale summit of 200+ stakeholders to agree on key coalition priorities around alleviated childhood poverty in rural Nebraska and develop recommended actions.
- Stakeholder Engagement + Collaborative Planning: Center Street Business District
Collaborative development planning process between the City of Omaha Planning and Public Works Departments, private developers, community residents, and property owners. Created and executed multi-modal community engagement strategy including mailers, fliers, surveys, small group meetings, neighborhood action teams, website, and public meetings of 90-120 participants to set community priorities and form working groups.
- Stakeholder Engagement + Collaborative Planning: Hanscom Park Renewal
Collaborative process between City of Omaha Parks Department, Public Works, and 3 bordering communities to redesign one of the city’s oldest and largest parks in concert with work on a federally mandate combined sewer overflow (CSO) project. Facilitated work groups of community residents (including youth ages 13-17) and city staff. Resulted in ongoing commitment of community residents to maintenance and activation of the park.
- United Nations Strategy Summit Facilitation: Joslyn Institute for Sustainable Communities
Strategy sessions for groups of 20-50 stakeholders, with results to be integrated into the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development
- Facilitation Training: Institute of Cultural Affairs
Trained more than 200 facilitators in consensus techniques, participatory strategic and action planning, and organizational assessment. One of fewer than 100 nationally certified ToP facilitators.
- Participatory Community Planning: inCOMMON Community Development
Public meeting of 60+ community residents, involving simultaneous translation of 3 languages, resulting in consensus on key priorities for land use and development, and the initiation of 3 neighborhood action teams still in operation.
- Collective Impact Monitoring: Tobacco Free Nebraska
Realignment sessions with over 40 stakeholder organizations to review and adjust collective impact efforts.
- Evaluation Design: Smith & Lehmann
Evaluation design for a large collaborative project promoting sexual and reproductive health in adolescents. Including creation of a logic model/theory of change and identification of target outcomes, key indicators, and measurement tools.
- Curriculum Design + Facilitation: University of Nebraska International Professional Development Program
Designed and delivered flexible modular curriculum on the topics of global leadership and intercultural communication, customizable to adult students’ individual goals and learning strategies.
- Curriculum Design + Facilitation: University of Nebraska Brazilian Educators Professional Development Program
Designed and delivered professional development curriculum for Brazilian English-language instructors, on the topic of participatory methods for language instruction; sponsored by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the Fulbright Commission.
- Community Outreach: Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer
Large scale community outreach effort to solicit input from community of 15,000. Achieved nearly 2700 survey responses, reflective of the area’s demographic diversity, due to strategic partnerships with a variety of area organizations. Analyzed data for integration into strategic planning process.
- Retreat Facilitation: Food Bank for the Heartland
Team building and conflict resolution sessions, including coaching in nonviolent communication and mindfulness.
- Focus Group Facilitation: VetSet
Focus groups with families of military veterans to identify family support needs.
- Customer Service Training + Action Planning: Prairie Health Ventures
Facilitated mixed-method participatory training/strategy development session to identify actions to improve customer service.
Client List
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Local, State and Federal Government
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Education Related Institutions
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Health-Related Institutions & Affiliated Organizations
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Professional & Community Associations
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Development & Land Use
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Non-Profit Organizations
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Private Business
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