Consulting & Facilitation: Ideas to Implementation
E-mail Kara | 303.579.2219 | Download Kara’s profile in PDF
Kara Penn, MBA, MPP is a Principal Consultant for Mission Spark. Kara cares about positive and innovative social change and her career and education reflect that passion. She strives to take the best and most practical ideas, lessons and tools from policy, management, community development, social movements, and systems thinking to help strengthen and innovate the social sector. Kara has 15 years of experience as a manager, facilitator and consultant in Colorado and through out the United States.
She’s served in senior leadership positions in a variety of organizations, including as founder, director, program manager, chair and board member. Kara cares deeply about social, cultural and environmental issues and has experience in a wide range of areas including health, human services, environmental justice, community development, youth development, international development, affordable housing and the arts. Kara also understands the unique challenges and opportunities facing nonprofit organizations, and sees the social sector as an innovative, effective and essential part of our societal fabric.
Kara’s approach is collaborative, inclusive and direct. She focuses on exceeding the expectations of her clients and getting lasting results. She sees the client/consultant relationship in a long-term context and cares about the results the organization achieves long after the contract ends.
Key Services
While Kara has experience in all facets of management, she typically focuses her work in the following areas:
- Organizational assessment and strategic planning
- Business planning & earned revenue strategies
- Program assessment, innovation & implementation
- Program evaluation
- Fund development strategy and planning
- Mediation & Facilitated Dialogue
- Organizational Structure and Systems Analysis
Professional Experience
Kara started as grassroots community change agent– developing scalable community-based programs and services in conjunction with a wide-variety of community partners to address environmental health issues in East St. Louis. She’s worked the night shift as a milieu counselor in a juvenile detention facility and worked through out South-East Asia in partnership with low-income artists and craftsmen to develop effective business practices for producing their wares for distribution and sale.
Since these early formative experiences she’s designed and led departments, programs, collaboratives, community initiatives and projects for more than 15 organizations including St. Mary’s Hospital in East St. Louis, IL, Jonathan Rose Companies in New York, NY, and MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence in Cambridge, MA. She’s consulted to approximately 50 non-profits, NGOs, government entities and social enterprises on core management and leadership areas, including board development, program management, fund development, evaluation and assessment and strategic planning. She has also led several organizations through mediation processes and organizational transitions as they resolve inner conflict and move to the next level of performance. Kara has facilitated several large scale community collaborative efforts, including the award-winning Metro East Lead Collaborative in East St. Louis, subject of an US EPA documentary focusing on effective collaborative efforts.
As a senior consultant and trainer for the Community Resource Center, Kara authored “Start Up for Success: Planning, Founding and Initiating a New 501(c)3″, a comprehensive and practical workbook for non profit start-up and early implementation. She also developed and delivered trainings in program evaluation, strategic planning, and early implementation for new nonprofit organizations. Kara also develops tools and thought leadership pieces on organizational learning and practical management in conjunction with a faculty member at MIT.
Educational Background
Kara graduated from The Colorado College, where she was a Boettcher Scholar. She completed her MPP, with honors, at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and her MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management. While at MIT Sloan, Kara received the Seley award, the highest honor given to a graduating student. Kara has been the recipient of several national fellowships, including the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for independent study abroad and to promote world citizenship, the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs to develop principled public leaders, and the Forte Fellowship to promote women leaders in business.
What Kara’s Clients Have To Say
Selected Clients and Projects*
World Education (funding strategy)
MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (project management)
World of Good Development Organization (tool implementation)
St. Louis Children’s Hospital (implementation strategy for major initiative)
St. Clair County Intergovernmental Grants Department (policies and procedures)
Colorado Theatre Guild (strategic plan development)
Wings Foundation (program evaluation)
Denver Open Media Foundation (budget development, strategic plan implementation)
Bennie E. Goodwin After School Academic Program (program evaluation and implementation)
The Conflict Center (strategic plan development)
Groundwork Denver (program evaluation)
Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence (facilitation, custom training)
Beyond the Bio
Things I love about consulting: I am inspired by the passion, drive and vision of social change leaders. I also love the way consulting enables lessons to be learned and shared across organizations and sectors.
Rural and urban: I am a fourth generation Coloradan who loves all parts of the state. I have also consulted through out other parts of the United States, mainly on the East Coast and Midwest. I have completed projects in big cities and rural communities, including small villages in Thailand and Vietnam.
Favorite pursuit(s): I have many! I enjoy traveling, painting in watercolor and acrylics, sports (playing and watching) and writing. I especially love spending time with my family. My young daughter is a constant source of joy.
Favorite places: Any place where I am able to work uninterrupted for a little while (see the part about having a young child above)
Hometown: Lakewood, Colorado
Surprising obsession: My newest obsession is to move away from obsessions in search of balance (wish me luck!) I also love children’s literature and poetry. I once wrote and illustrated a children’s book for a governmental agency on staying safe and healthy around an environmental hazard. Over ten years later it is still in print and actively in use in a variety of school districts, complete with a mascot-version of the lead character.
Something I will do one of these days: Finish the journal I started five years ago.
If I had a lot of land: I would engage creative social change-makers in coming up with great ideas about how to use that land to inspire and support social enterprises world-wide.
*Some listed consulting projects were completed in through other organizations. Organizations include MIT Sloan School of Management, Coro Leadership Center – St. Louis and the Community Resource Center.
