Professional Coaching for Changemakers

Are you struggling with a lack of support? Is the chaos of this political moment creating hopelessness or despair?

Let’s help you navigate uncertainty and overwhelm and grow your hope, confidence, and ease in your work.

You’ll leave coaching with new skills, tools, and practices you can rely on to support your social movement work, now and long into the future.

Professional coaching may be for you if …

You're struggling with:

  • Burnout and despair caused by systems that hurt.

  • Challenges with volunteers and staff.

  • Unaddressed power dynamics, especially related to race.

  • Conflict and the need for increased equity analysis and practice.

  • Equitable hiring challenges.

You're longing for:

  • Improved coaching skills to support volunteers and staff.

  • Increased trust among your teammates.

  • Someone to talk to and to feel less alone in the work.

  • Strategy that allows you to respond to changing terrain.

  • Greater presence, hope, joy, and energy.

You don’t have to face these issues alone.

If your manager is stretched too thin, if your styles don't mesh, if you don't even have a manager — or want somebody who is more focused on your challenges and growth, coaching is the answer.

As your coach, I’ve got your back. Together, we will laser focus on you and your specific needs.

If you are ready to grow your leadership skills, cut through hard decisions, learn to navigate the political moment, and make changes to move you off the edge of burnout and away from implosion, I am here to support you.

As your coach, I am committed to:

  • Supporting real-time problem solving 

  • Co-developing systems to support strong teams

  • Seeing your strengths

  • Encouraging you to build from what you already know

  • Helping you solve the challenges you’re facing

  • Accompanying you through all the big changes

  • Offering warm presence and support you can lean against

If you long to receive support as you work to transform the conditions in your community, I would love to be your coach.

I am particularly skilled at supporting: 

  • Organizers, campaigners, and others doing political work on the frontlines of movements for liberation

  • New managers developing their approach and learning fast in challenging times 

  • Experienced managers and executives facing the toughest decisions in the current chaos

  • Community leaders and committee chairs

  • Small business owners who are mission-driven and community-focused

  • Educators, healers, and artists doing community change work

Here are the steps we’ll follow together to help you navigate this political moment: 

  • 1. Your Plan

    We begin by creating a written plan tailored to your needs. The plan is also a place for us to dream, brainstorm, and connect in between our sessions, and it will guide us toward your desired outcomes.

  • 2. Meetings

    I’ll invite you to share what is most helpful to you right now and identify what you want to come out of each conversation. We’ll explore options and perspectives, with you ultimately deciding and developing your path forward.

  • 3. Homework

    During our meetings, we’ll agree on action items to support your learning. Action items may include things like reflection exercises, journaling, conversations you’d like to have, and more.

  • 4. Emails

    In between our meetings, I’ll be available by email. We may exchange documents or have a virtual asynchronous conversation.


“Mary Alice’s genius is coaching.
She knows how to ask the right questions.”

–Miranda Ehrlich, Senior Campaign Director, Greenlight America

Rates & Payments

A typical contract covers two meetings per month for a duration of six months. Included in the contract are homework assignments and other between-meeting communications, such as written reflection exercises, journaling, and more. 

Sliding scale rates range from $2,400 to $8,400.

Organizational Sliding Scale: These rates are for you if you are affiliated with an organization such as a nonprofit, school, government body, political campaign, philanthropic group, or similar institution. 

  • Supporter: $6,500-8,400. Please select this range if your organization’s annual budget and assets are $10–20+ million.

  • Standard: $4,500-6,400. Please select this range if your organization’s annual budget and assets are $2–10 million.

  • Equity: $2,400-4,400. Please select this range if your organization’s annual budget and assets are less than $2 million.

Individuals: These rates are for you if you are not linked to an organization, such as movement workers and volunteers. 

  • Supporter: $4,400. Please select this range if your household income is above $125K per year and you have inherited assets or wealth. 

  • Standard: $3,400. Please choose this range if your household income is above $125K per year and you have privileged identities (like whiteness).

  • Equity: $2,400. Please choose this range if your household income is under $125K per year. 

If you have financial concerns about the tuition rates, please share that with me in our discovery session so we can be in conversation about your needs.

Final rates will be dependent on the agreed-upon role, scope, and resources of the contracting entity. Payment plans are available. 

1:1 Coaching FAQ

  • Individuals often ask their employer or fiscal sponsor for professional development funds to cover all or a portion of the coaching cost. Others pay out of pocket, from grant funds, or other sources.

  • I offer a sliding scale to make coaching more accessible. Folks who can pay more help make it possible for me to offer a range of price points.

    The ability to pay more may be indicated by comfortably paying your mortgage or rent, having access to inherited assets and/or wealth, an institution covering the cost of your coaching, or holding privileged identities such as whiteness.

    If you are new to sliding scale rates or would like more guidance to consider your rate, the Green Bottle image and metaphor from Alexis J Cunningfolk may be a useful resource.

    If we’ve completed a free discovery session and we both want to work together, I’ll invite you to share the rate that most accurately reflects your circumstances. I will let you know if the rate you proposed feels aligned to me. If I need to discuss your selected rate with you or propose a different rate, I will let you know. 

  • "I feel like I'm being mentored by Mary Alice in how to do the work with caring and attention to the people and the details."

    –Alix Davidson

  • "In our meetings together, Mary Alice brings great humility mixed with confidence and clear decision making."

    –Josh Bookin, Harvard Graduate School of Education

  • “I appreciate Mary Alice's authenticity, expressiveness, presence and care.”

    –Jen Quest-Stern, community-based counselor

  • “Before I met Mary Alice, I felt like I was spinning my wheels. I wanted a change, but I didn’t know how to define or translate what I wanted into reality. Mary Alice helped me shake up stagnation. From our first session, I knew I could tell her anything. She’s warm, caring, professional and technical. Our conversations helped me dig into introspection and emotion in my professional life. I’m leaving coaching feeling more productive. I have a vision and set of values as a guide. I’m clearer about my agency, my strengths and my boundaries.”

    – F. Brown

  • “Coaching is helping me get to the root of feelings of isolation and fear of conflict that have been keeping me stuck in parts of my work. After identifying the root causes, I’ve been able to move through the stuckness and into action. Additionally, coaching provides me with tangible, useful activities and concrete plans to apply in my work right away. In our coaching sessions, Mary Alice models an orientation to openness and listening that I have appreciated learning from and am working to bring more intentionally into my other relationships. I’m so grateful for our sessions and the practices that are helping me move forward with what really matters to me."

    – Emma B, Advocacy & Organizing Director, Resource Rural

Connect with Me

Let’s meet for a free one-hour discovery session.

  1. Click the button below to fill out an intake form to guide our conversation.

  2. Choose a time to talk.

On our call, we’ll explore your struggles and help you get clear on your next moves, which may include an invitation to work with me.

I look forward to talking with you soon!

Discovery Session
Discovery Session