Client Engagements

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Over our six year history, Spirit for Change Consulting has partnered with a diverse group of mission-focused organizations working to advance equitable communities, including: 

• AARP Livable Communities
• City of Akron, Ohio
• Community Change
• Ford Foundation
• Knight Foundation
• Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
• LOCUS/Smart Growth America
• Make Room
• National League of Cities
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• New Growth Innovation Network
• NYU Furman Center
• People's Liberty
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Summit County Continuum of Care
• The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• Urban Land Institute
• Y Combinator Research

The work of Spirit for Change takes many forms while leveraging our expertise in housing, urban planning, community development, and civic infrastructure, as well as strategy development, coaching, organizational change, and policy making. 

The City of Akron, OH announced plans to create the Office of Integrated Development (OID) in early 2018 to better align the City’s community and economic development efforts. The City engaged Spirit for Change Consulting to lead a 15-month process to support OID's establishment with a new mission, core values, goals, and metrics to inform a five-year strategic framework designed to advance equity, better leverage resources, and deliver improved services to all Akron residents. In addition, the process was also designed to build team capacity around a new way of working to support the implementation of the five-year strategic framework released in December 2019. 

Community Change, with support from the Ford Foundation, launched the Housing Playbook Project in June 2020 to reimagine the federal response to our nation's current and future housing challenges with a focus on housing justice. Spirit for Change Consulting' Founder, Lynn M. Ross, served as the Senior Fellow for the Housing Playbook Project and in that role she was responsible for all aspects of the initiative. Designing and leading the project involved curating more the 400 ideas from the field; engaging an 20-person advisory committee of cross-sector leaders; managing a team of 10 contributing authors and several external reviewers. The housing playbook was delivered to the Biden-Harris Transition Team in early November 2020 and released to the public as New Deal for Housing Justice in January 2021.

Reimagining the Civic Commons is a national initiative working in 10 U.S. cities to revitalize and connect civic assets. A collaboration of national foundations and a network of local partners, the initiative is working toward four main goals: civic engagement, socioeconomic mixing, environmental sustainability and value creation. The initiative is funded nationally by the JPB Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Knight Foundation, and William Penn Foundation. From 2017-2022, Spirit for Change Consulting led Knight Foundation’s national engagement with Reimagining the Civic Commons including serving on the national steering committee for the initiative.