Civic Consulting Services

Over the years, the Mediators Foundation has served as a convener in the field of collaborative leadership and civic innovation—bringing together a remarkable community of thought leaders and changemakers with diverse expertise. Building on this legacy, we are excited to launch a new consulting initiative that channels our mission of advancing the greater good into actionable service.

Led by seasoned consultants Jacob Bornstein and Alyssa Newlon, both of whom have founded and grown successful firms, this effort will focus on supporting leaders, organizations, and communities working at the intersection of bridge-building, civic innovation, democratic renewal, and collaborative leadership.

What We Do

Our team of advisors draw from decades of experience in project design and strategy, informed by familiarity of what makes projects fail and succeed in diverse areas of social change work. With our personalized guidance, social entrepreneurs are assisted in articulating their project’s vision and mission in a way that is most effective to garner traction with potential partners and funders. We offer various levels of brainstorming, editing, and feedback to project proposals, budgets, and other organizational materials. Building upon this refinement, our consultants can aid in identifying action steps and establishing realistic timelines for projects to achieve their goals.

Together with our partners, we offer deep expertise in:

  • Facilitation & Collaborative Processes

  • Project Design & Development

  • Monitoring & Evaluation

  • Strategic Visioning & Planning

  • Fundraising & Grantwriting

  • Marketing & Communication

  • Leadership Training & Workshops

To take your project from idea to reality, please schedule an informational call by emailing info@mediatorsfoundation.org.

Our Consulting Team

  • Mark Gerzon

    Mark Gerzon, Founder and Former President of Mediators Foundation, has specialized in leadership that bridges divides. As an experienced facilitator in high-conflict zones, he has advised a wide variety of organizations including the US Congress, multinational corporations, and the United Nations Development Program. He is also a leading author of books in the field of conflict transformation, including A House Divided (1996), Leading Through Conflict (2006) and Global Citizens (2010).

    His concern about the increasing polarization in America led him to devote the past three decades to working on the ideological frontier between Left and Right. He co-designed and served as the head facilitator for the US Bipartisan Congressional Retreats in the late 1990s, and has spent the following years participating in a wide variety of efforts to deepen dialogue across the political spectrum. This work led to his most recent book The Reunited States of America, which inspired the film The Reunited States, now playing on Amazon Prime.

    Mark lives with his wife Melissa in Boulder, Colorado, and has three sons and eight grandchildren.

    To hear Mark speak, check out his TedTalk in Vail and TedTalk in Saltillo, Mexico.

  • Jacob Bornstein

    Jacob is a visionary strategist and consensus builder. He is a leader in stakeholder engagement and collaborative strategy in the public and nonprofit sectors.

    Some of the project topics he's led at the local, state, and national levels include climate, climate justice, outdoor recreation, environmental conservation, water policy, behavioral health, affordable housing, firearm death and injury, and education.

    He is the Principal of Wellstone Collaborative Strategies and a founding board member of the Civic Consulting Collaborative. After 22 years of working with businesses, state and local government, nonprofits, and foundations, he specializes in uncovering the invisible threads that bind diverse and divergent stakeholders together to solve a challenge.

    Prior to consulting, Jacob was focused on western water for nearly a decade and a half. This included being the executive director of the Colorado Watershed Network and developing and facilitating Colorado's Water Plan for the Department of Natural Resources.

  • Alyssa Newlon

    Alyssa has worked for almost two decades with prosocial startups, both internationally and in the US. She has a robust track record of empowering social enterprises and nonprofits to achieve transformative impact (including designing curriculum for the ILO in Bangkok and producing a 360 film for Oculus, Facebook for Good, and the Malafund). As a life-long idealist and researcher in stereotyping, stigma, and shame: Alyssa continues to foster dynamic cross-sector collaboration amongst unlikely partners. As the founder of Tardigrade Development, Alyssa provides comprehensive infrastructure support to startups, guiding them through early-stage challenges and implementing data-driven strategies that increase visibility and operational efficiency.

    Currently, Alyssa serves as a Strategic Development Specialist for Psych for Life, the Director of Strategic Development and Communications for Better Together America, and the Creative Director for Team Democracy, where she drives initiatives aimed at enhancing community resilience, enhancing collaboration and connectivity, and fortifying civic capacity.