Throughout Deirdre’s involvement with the committee, she provided a positive, solution-focused approach to our barriers, and this helped the committee members develop a common direction. I would recommend Deirdre for any process-related work that wishes to bring disparate viewpoints together into a single approach.”
Creating change is hard. You want more impact. We’re here to help.
SHIFT Collaborative is a registered cooperative that helps people make progress on tough social and environmental challenges together. Drawing on our experience designing and facilitating collaboration and engagement for systems change, we harness leading thinking and practices for new results. These enable us to build a better future together by tackling systems, not symptoms, and fostering collaboration between sectors.
We have worked on issues ranging from social connectedness and inclusion to food security, climate change,and public health, to name a few. For a decade we have worked together to support people and groups make meaningful change on the real-world issues we all care about.
Meet our SHIFT Team
Why people love working with Stacy:
Exquisite communicator, creatively strategic, sets sights on highest quality, resourceful
Her talents:
● Designing and facilitating learning
● Finding common ground amongst diverse viewpoints
● Can hold the container for both the big and small picture
● Great intuition about what is at the heart of “stuckness” and how to design processes to break through.
stacy@shiftcollaborative.ca
Stacy Barter, M.Ed - Bio
Stacy Barter is a learning specialist, facilitator, evaluator, and coach who has worked for over 20 years with a wide range of communities, non-profit, and public sector organizations in Canada and Latin America. Specializing in process and program design, Stacy has led numerous multi-faceted community change initiatives from the ground up, and has developed a diverse array of training and capacity building programs to support changemakers. Her recent work focuses on leadership development for multi-sector collaboration, community resilience, and building collective impact. She is an Innoweave Collective Impact coach, a certified Human Systems Dynamics Practitioner, and the lead facilitator for the Building Resilient Neighbourhoods initiative. Stacy holds a M. Ed. from Simon Fraser University specializing in Adult Education, community development, and organizational learning.
Why people love working with Kerri:
Insightful, intuitive, grounded, uber-organized
Her talents:
● Taking big concepts and making them accessible
● Working collaboratively
● Distilling simplicity from complexity
● Creating clarity and inspiring confidence.
kerri@shiftcollaborative.ca
Kerri Klein, MA - Bio
Kerri Klein is a learning specialist, facilitator and coach who has worked for the last 15 years designing and leading collaborative planning and engagement processes with a wide range of sectors and communities. She spent the last 10 years working with BC Healthy Communities developing and facilitating innovative initiatives, supporting non-profits, local governments and provincial public sector organizations to develop shared leadership capacities to address complex issues such as climate change, chronic disease and poverty reduction.
Most recently, Kerri's work focuses on supporting collective impact, systems change and leadership development with community and sector leaders in BC. Kerri has a certificate in Community Economic Development, and holds an MA in Environmental Education & Communications with a specialization in leadership for social change. Kerri is a certified Human Systems Dynamics practitioner and an approved Innoweave Collective Impact coach.
Why people love working with Erica:
Open-hearted, grounded, attentive to detail, playful.
Her talents:
● Tending to both the inner and outer aspects of group process and dynamics
● Responding to the needs of a group in the moment
● Bringing creativity to the table
● Keen insights into fluidity and process
erica@shiftcollaborative.ca
Erica Crawford, MA, Plan - Bio
Erica brings over a decade of experience working with local governments, organizations and non-profits as a planner, researcher, facilitator and coach. With a background in community planning and climate change adaptation, she applies a deep understanding of change processes to the practicalities of policy, planning and community development. As a certified Human Systems Dynamics Practitioner, she brings systems thinking, pattern recognition and adaptive action to her work with organizations and collaborative initiatives.
For the past three years, Erica has worked as a Community Facilitator and Coach, training and coaching groups on core capacities for systems change, including studying theory of change, Collective Impact and adaptive action. Prior to this, she was the lead designer, researcher and facilitator of a province-wide assessment of risks & opportunities for the agriculture sector due to climate change, as well as the lead planner for four regional adaptation plans.
Erica has a Master’s degree in Community and Regional Planning from UBC.
Why people love working with Deirdre:
Her talents:
Compassionate, innovative, solid, resourceful.
Her talents:
● Getting to the heart of issues when facilitating group dialogue
● Always finding a way to move forward
● Creating inclusive spaces
● Brings everything she’s got — her whole self and extensive resources
deirdre@shiftcollaborative.ca
Deirdre Goudriaan, MALT - Bio
Deirdre is a process designer, evaluator and researcher, facilitator and coach who has worked extensively with all scales of community and government. She leads collaborative design processes and has worked with numerous sectors, business leaders and NGO’s. For the last 12 years, Deirdre has worked with BC Healthy Communities and in her own consultancy to address wicked problems and design innovative solutions.
Deirdre has a Master’s Degree in Leadership and Training and has focused on conflict resolution and negotiation and work that helps communities heal. This work spans from focused trauma supports to working through conflict constructively. Deirdre is currently focused on supporting Collective Impact initiatives as a member of the Seeds of Change Surrey leadership team (food systems work) and as an Innoweave Collective Impact coach. She is certified as a Human Systems Dynamics practitioner, and has been certified by Acumen in Human Centred Design and Prototyping.
Why people love working with Michelle:
Practical, Laser focused, Collaborative, Experienced
Her talents:
● Helping groups get unstuck and come up with an actionable plan
● Finding practical ways through sticky situations
● Sourcing the best of the group
● Incredible wealth of resources and connections
michelle@shiftcollaborative.ca
Michelle Colussi - Bio
Michelle Colussi worked with the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal (CCCR) on a variety of community economic development initiatives for 20 years. Originally trained as a teacher, her background includes recreation, youth justice, mental health, theatre and social enterprise.
Michelle has an extensive background in rural development projects working with First Nations, local governments and NGO’s, and her facilitation and community development skills have been in demand among corporate and NGO clients. She was a key member in the development of the Community Resilience Manual that CCCR developed in 2000 and worked with the Government of Botswana to adapt the tool and train facilitators there. She is a founding member of Transition Victoria (BC) and supported the spread of Transition Towns in Canada through Launch training and chairing the Transition Emerging research Advisory Group. In her Transition Victoria role, Michelle co-founded Building Resilient Neighbourhoods and continues to provide pro bono supports to scaling aspects of this work in BC. Currently Michelle’s practice is focused on facilitation, training and coaching to strengthen community collaboration and impacts, working with Innoweave’s Collective Impact program and Scale Collaborative’s 21st Century Non-Profits program. She lives in Victoria with her son and husband who are the real connectors in the family.
What people say about working with us
Kerri Klein and Stacy Barter […] are consummate professionals offering […] creative survey design, implementation and communication of results in a collaborative, supportive and fun style. They have coordinated and facilitated challenging hands-on workshops in diverse settings with excellent results and been instrumental in filling a crucial niche with the Climate Change Health Policy Group in BC.”
Associate Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Erica [has an] intuitive ability to keep asking questions until you get past your usual answers until new thinking and impact becomes possible. I also appreciate Erica’s vast toolkit of social innovation processes – having an experienced facilitator who can bring people together to collectively imagine new approaches to longstanding challenges is invaluable.”
Coordinator, North Shore Table Matters