Tracy Kunkler, MSW, is a Principal and co-founder of Circle Forward, a system of collaborative governance, providing frameworks and decision-making tools to leverage change in large-scale systems. It has been particularly effective in cross-sector networks, where the complexity of institutional partners makes decision-making more difficult. It is being used by networks at many different levels, from neighborhoods and municipalities, to food policy and large landscape conservation networks, to other community development and cross sector networks around the country.
Circle Forward Partners, our team, brings the latest research and our own hard-won experience into your space to support you in designing your own collaborative governance system.
Tracy’s work arises out of 20 years employment in the nonprofit sector and 12 years of facilitation, consultation, and coaching practice. Tracy is focused on meeting her clients’ needs for more adaptive ways of governing how they work together, make decisions, engage diverse voices, empower leadership, and distribute power – to bring about more equitable and effective results in large scale systems change.
Tracy’s work has been featured on the Community Voices program at the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance (VTIPG); as one the “Best Ideas for 2016” by the Mountain Xpress; as a key framework by the North American Food Systems Network (NAFSN), and in a UMN research publication, “Cultivating Collective Action: The Ecology of a Statewide Food Network.”
The mission of Circle Forward Partners is to accelerate and expand the use of collaborative governance and the principle of Consent, by providing facilitation, coaching, training, and design spaces for leaders and social innovators working in complex systems.
tracy@circleforward.us