Speaking & Expertise

We offer dynamic speaking, practical strategies, trusted expertise, and interactive training in community empowerment and economic localism.

An impassioned advocate for communities and local businesses, Ellen Shepard brings a blend of deep expertise, thoughtful analysis, and wry humor. She has presented on the importance of community empowerment and economic localism at conferences and universities across the United States, and she has trained dozens of communities in her methods. Ellen is a frequent and trusted source of information for city officials and economic development professionals as well as journalists, podcasters, and documentary filmmakers. In her training sessions, Ellen offers inspiring stories, practical strategies, and hands-on tools from the many communities in which she has worked.

Speaking and training topics include:

Empowering Communities

We make the case for redistributing decision-making power to populations most impacted by decision outcomes. We train public officials, nonprofits, and others in practical strategies they can apply to forge partnerships with community members that lead to trust and more impactful and equitable results.

Community Meetings that Don’t Suck

In this popular talk and training, we take a candid look at why both government officials and community members hate traditional community meetings with such fervor. We provide new models of community meeting design that position officials and community members as equal partners in a common cause and meld the best of professional expertise and lived experience.

Navigating Power

Power is always present in community and economic development, and it can be a force for positive change. However, power’s shadow side is also there, impacting who has access to opportunity, resources, and influence. In this talk or training, we work with leaders to address their power deliberately and strategically, so that they can disrupt patterns that sustain an inequitable status quo.

Why Local Matters and How to Go Local

How to build economic vitality and resilience by supporting locally-owned businesses and shifting public policy to growing economic strength from within. We provide the economic arguments as well as hands-on tools for making the Localism shift.

Speaking and expertise examples

Select articles

This city found a way to get everyone involved in urban planning. Yes! Magazine

Amazon is not the solution to Chicago’s exodus. Chicago Tribune

Chicagoans better take a hard and wary look at any deal to woo Amazon. Chicago Sun Times

How to say "no" to Amazon. Yes! Magazine

Community Engagement for Main Street Transformation. Main Street America

Business deals alone won’t save us. Chicago Tribune

Mayor shouldn't overlook real economic engine: local, small businesses. Crain’s Chicago Business

Property tax hikes will devastate Chicago small businesses. Crain’s Chicago Business

Sample keynotes, panels, trainings, and interviews

International Economic Development Council
Main Street America
International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
Common Future/Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
Center for Community Progress: Reclaiming Vacant Properties
WBEZ Public Radio
Center for Urban Research and Learning at Loyola University
NBC News

- Chicago Center for Green Technology
- Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection
- Chicago Department of Planning and Development
- Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce
- City of Evanston Downtown Plan Commission
- Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago
- Family Farmed
- Friends of the Chicago River
- Goodman Theatre
- Green Festival
- Local First West Michigan
- Missouri Main Street
- National Lewis University
- North Park University
- Team Englewood
- Think Local First Ann Arbor
- University of Chicago Women M.B.A. Alumni Association
- The Value Web
- Woodstock Institute

Testimonials

“Ellen’s bespoke workshop for our community on “Navigating Power” was well-researched, clearly communicated, and facilitated in an inclusive and emergent manner.”

— Peter Durand, The Value Web

“We hired Community Allies to lead us in a day long session to provide us with a tool box of various techniques for convening, listening and insuring that all at the table were heard and that the convenings were beneficial to all.”

—Jamee Haley, Lowcountry Local First