Our goal is to empower social impact and nonprofit organizations to have greater impact with less investment of time and resources. We offer tools and processes that help build learning and create more resilient organizations. Each client is unique, and we tailor our work to meet their specific needs.
Entrellis is committed to supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work, particularly via a human-centered design approach that prioritizes deep listening to diverse voices. We meet clients where they are in building their commitments to DEI. We encourage them to work with DEI experts to strengthen their efforts. We also seek out opportunities to learn and partner to improve our own understanding and ability to be of service to clients.
We are committed to work that helps address the climate crisis, whether with environmental organizations on the front lines, cleantech entrepreneurs, or with organizations seeking to reduce their climate footprint. At the same time, we are continually engaged in ways to reduce our own organizational climate impacts.
We'd love to hear from you.
ALISON PETERS
CEO and Founder Alison Peters provides a human-centered design approach to help organizations increase their impact. She works with nonprofit, business, and government clients, adapting business tools such as lean systems and human-centered design processes as needed to align with a client’s organizational culture and strengths.
She works is with environmental and human services nonprofits and international development NGOs as well as with startups and entrepreneurs in technology and cleantech businesses. Types of projects include strategic planning, needs assessments, program design, customer research, streamlining business processes, and facilitating difficult but critical conversations.
Alison became fascinated by the way design thinking creates opportunities to explore new ideas, and lean startup and systems principles create a clear way to assess how those ideas work in real time. She'd like to see more...experimentation, risk-taking, and people who are delighted by their work. Not to mention products and services that really meet the mark and have demonstrable impact. She now works with collaborative partners with expertise in different aspects of these skills to bring user-centered innovation to business and nonprofit leaders.
She has served as Managing Director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at CU-Boulder, where she managed Center operations, strategic planning and implementation. She has also served as the Environmental Affairs Director for the City of Boulder, a personal and professional coach, a sustainability researcher, and a congressional legislative assistant. She has a BA from Yale University and an MA in economics from Stanford. In her free time she can be found tackling yet another home improvement project or just wandering down to the creek.
FREQUENT COLLABORATORS
Our network of partners and frequent collaborators helps add value in design and subject matter expertise, depending on your needs.
MARGARET GREENE
Margaret is the President of Greeneworks, an international consulting firm that offers research strategy, program evaluation and support, policy analysis, and organizational strategy development. Her work combines demographic, anthropological, ecological, and public health research methods to strengthen development efforts.
She has 20 years of international substantive and leadership experience as a staff member and consultant with diverse organizations and agencies, including NGOs, funders, and other institutions. She has a particular focus on social inclusion, reproductive health and rights, and gender equity. Margaret has a PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Washington, DC with her family.
PHI FILERMAN
Phi is a business consultant with 20 years experience in operations management, process improvement, real estate and green building, and energy efficiency. She has worked in affordable housing with organizations such as Perry Rose LLC, the Metro West Housing Authority, and the town of Carbondale, CO. She has also managed process evaluations and benchmarking studies of energy efficiency programs, run LEED projects, and served as a telecommunications consultant. She has also managed communications, outreach and events for nonprofit and for-profit clients.
Phi's varied background allows her to manage all aspects of complex projects, from the details to identifying big-picture business implications. She has an MBA and a Master's in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder.
JEN FREEMAN
Jen provides consulting services for non-profit organizations and government agencies. Jen has more than twenty-five years of non-profit management experience at all levels, including eight years as executive director. She has significant experience collaborating with non-profits, government agencies, and funders.
Her work has included grant solicitation, relationship building, grant management, fund management, strategic funder scans, and reporting. She specializes in conservation and stewardship, youth development and engagement, human services, and community collaboration.
PAUL LANDER
Paul is principal at the Dakota Ridge Partnership, which focuses on urban sustainable systems, water demand management, sustainable landscape education planning program management. He has worked in the fields of water, energy and land conservation for over 35 years. For 16 years, he led the City of Boulder’s Water Conservation Office, directing the city’s award-winning program for a community of over 100,000 people. He has also served as an analyst for Sustainable Collaborations Group, providing expertise in the culture of water; metrics and data analysis; and system maturity and capacity.
He is an Adjunct Professor of Geography at the Masters of the Environment program at CU-Boulder, teaching courses in Conservation Practice, Water of the Western U.S, Landscape Sustainability, and Green Infrastructure. He is active in professional associations including the Alliance for Water Efficiency and the American Water Resources Association. He is chair of the Boulder Tree Trust and the past chair of Metro State University’s One World One Water Advisory Board. Paul has a PhD in Geography from the University of Colorado Boulder, a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from the University of Washington, and is LEED AP certified.
ALICE LEE
Alice is a business designer and social impact strategist, passionate about activating people, power, and markets for social impact through facilitative approaches rooted in design thinking. Her background includes serving as Business Development & Global Initiatives Manager for iDE, an international development nonprofit, to grow and diversify its multimillion-dollar grant portfolio across Africa, Asia, and Latin America through business development and market systems strategy. After Alice worked with iDE Mozambique to redesign program strategies with a holistic approach, iDE Mozambique expanded its programs to new provinces with deeper, targeted objectives and became known as the go-to NGO for agricultural market systems resilience in the country.
Alice has also worked with nonprofits and social enterprises in Uganda, Kenya, and Mozambique on strategic planning, business startup and operations, communications & marketing strategy, and photography. Past clients include Nisolo, 31Bits, and Sunshine Nut Company. Alice holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Southern California.
KARA PENN
Kara brings 20+ years of experience as a leader, facilitator, evaluator and consultant. She’s consulted to more than 100 mission-based organizations on management and leadership, including board governance, resource development, evaluation and assessment, and strategic planning. She’s led organizations through mediation processes and organizational transitions. She conducted evaluations for Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, COPIC Medical Foundation, and Project Safeguard Lawyers, among others. She’s led complex strategic planning processes in a variety of K-12 education, childhood hunger prevention, maternal and early childhood mental health and wellness, and early childhood education organizations and collaboratives. Kara has worked with multiple community-based, corporate and private foundations, including the Rose Community Foundation, the Summit Foundation, the Boettcher Foundation, COPIC Medical Foundation and Global Greengrants Fund.
Kara co-authored a general management book on applied action learning entitled Fail Better: Design Smart Mistakes and Succeed Sooner, selected as a top ten business book of the year by Business Digest. Kara completed her MPP, with honors, at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, and her MBA at MIT Sloan School of Management.
JANINE UNDERHILL
Janine is a graphic facilitator and visual learning consultant, as well as the CEO/Founder of IDEA-360, Inc. Janine applies neuroscience, learning theory, graphic facilitation, and storytelling to tap into brainpower and inspire change by giving participants the tools to tell the stories that matter long after the meeting.
For over 20 years, Janine has helped make the invisible visible for Fortune 100 clients and nonprofit organizations that need a repeatable blueprint to reach important meeting outcomes. Janine practices dynamic, experiential big-picture learning processes so meeting participants can fully engage in conversation, and tether their ideas and beliefs to the big picture of the organization. Janine has partnered with organizations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Coca Cola, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, Smithsonian Institute, Google, Denver Public Schools, CHFA, Singularity University, Ernst & Young, McKinsey, Kaiser, Merck, ASU and many more.
KELLY VARIAN
Kelly is a seasoned social impact strategy consultant with a passion for helping nonprofit, foundation, and government leaders achieve their goals to drive transformative change. With over seven years of experience in the field, she specializes in a range of areas, including strategic planning, impact evaluation, quantitative analysis, inclusive community engagement, facilitation, and strategy implementation.
Kelly has worked with a variety of clients in different sectors, including higher education and climate. She has developed strategies for departments at the University of Michigan and Brown University, and served as the Communications and Development Director for a data project at Harvard University. Kelly collaborated with the California Energy Commission on policies that encourage private investment in clean energy technology deployment, with a particular focus on benefiting underserved communities . She is also conducting research with the Environmental Defense Fund to on climate resilience policy. She holds a BA from Colorado College and is completing a Master of Public Affairs degree at UC Berkeley with a concentration in equitable climate policy.
