What Our Clients Say
Bobby Bozidar Jovanovic - Community Building & Engagement Coordinator, Mid Central Community Action
Michael Ohler, Ed.D. Guest and Resident Services Coordinator - Champlain Housing Trust
Rosimar Melendez, Program Director, Horizon Foundation
Julie Wilson, Assistant Professor, Allegheny College
Kathryn Staats, Prevention Services Coordinator, Community Advocates Public Policy Institute
Mandara Meyers, Vice President, Leadership Development and Design, Leadership for Educational Equity
“I have worked with David since 2010. He was the keynote speaker at the 2010 National Aged Care Conference in Australia. He had a huge impact on the Conference – inspiring delegates to stand up for the changes that are needed in aged and community care. He also presented a workshop on story-telling that people still talk about.
In 2013 the Tasmanian aged care body brought David back to Australia to headline our first State Conference for 10 years. He participated in a program of momentum building activities around the Conference and was a huge hit as the headline speaker. David is great to work with – he adds value to events by getting involved in the planning and making suggestions that help you to achieve your aims.
I have no hesitation in recommending him to any organization – you won’t regret engaging him because he will engage you, your staff and your customers.”
Rod Hunt, Hunt & Fitzgerald
Nora Lichtash, Executive Director, WCRP
Higher Vision Ministries and Eagle’s Wings Development Center
Jacqueline Johnson Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of American Indians
Saman Akhtar, Assistant Director, HopeWorks (formerly Domestic Violence Center)
Audrey A Anderson, Mayor Pro tem, City Council member, Ypsilanti Michigan.
Song Hutchins, Founder/President/CEO, HUD Certified Housing Counselor, HECM Counselor
Sarah Stout, Neighbor Works Umpqua, Roseburg, Oregon
Abbie Brewer, Housing Resources of Western Colorado
Jessica Gnad Pratt, Kansas
Britney King, Family Economic Opportunity Program Assistant, Sherwood, Oregon
Ed Cortas, Director of Consulting Services, Center for Nonprofit Excellence, Louisville, Kentucky
David’s workshops have become an integral part of the core curriculum at the Honors Living-Learning Community (HLLC) at Rutgers University-Newark. Each fall, David visits with our newest cohort of students, who work toward minors in social justice in addition to their major areas of concentration. His deep-dives into the power of storytelling as a fundamental organizing and community-building tool give students both a crucial tool in their expanding social-change toolboxes and a framework for understanding how they might critically approach the discursive politics of our times, whatever form it takes, as social media, campaign rhetoric, popular culture, or professional and scientific literature. With real-world focus – on, for example, recent battles over American monuments and the Movement for Black Lives – he demonstrates how storytelling helps produce not only new narratives and ideas, but also material social change in particular times and places. This approach has helped educate and activate successive cohorts of engaged citizens at HLLC, who bring a critical, multidimensional intelligence to their much-needed work for positive social change.
Mark Krasovic - Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Rutgers University-Newark
David led a great session to introduce our youth to the fundamentals of community organizing. He was intentional about keeping the youth involved throughout with interactive content and scenarios the youth could relate to. The framing around power was especially helpful for youth to consider how power operates in more complex ways than “good” or “evil” and how they can use their own power, particularly when working with their peers and community. This session provided a great foundation for us to continue supporting our youth organizers!