About

About Us

We are committed to transforming the way people solve problems and create solutions by using creative design, evaluation, and facilitation methods - leading to increased trust, strengthened relationships, and meaningful impact. You have the answers, we help you find them!

Headshot of Michelle Helman

Principal Consultant + CEO
Michelle is committed to co-creating a world where healing, peace, and justice are possible. She is a called-upon adviser, speaker, mediator, facilitator, and evaluator with 20+ years of international public, private, and nonprofit sector experience guiding leaders and teams to work together across differences to co-create solutions and work better, together.

Michelle is a Doctoral Fellow in Health & Peace Innovation at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, has a MA in Peace & Conflict Studies, is a Rotary Peace Fellow and Senior Fellow at the Center for Public Service at Portland State University. She is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Perú, 2006-2008), a Wilderness First Responder, and string instrument enthusiast.

Michelle partners with a trusted team of experienced professionals on select projects.

Approach + Values

Equity, Justice, and Co-Liberation - We believe change is possible, nonlinear, and complex - and that conflict can be generative; We use a data justice approach to assess, examine, and acknowledge power structures.
Prioritize Relationships - We work in collaboration with you, and maintain a goal of connection & belonging; We apply a trauma-informed approach that centers healing and honors lived experience.
Embrace Uncertainty - We ask questions and trust that you (or the community you are working with) have the answers - We help you find them!

"Michelle is a strategic thinker who worked diligently to help Brown Hope deliver an inclusive engagement process for meaningful organizational impact."

- cameron whitten, Brown Hope CEO & Founder

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Work With Us

Equity Journey, by Michelle Helman:

Equity, peace, and healing justice are interconnected. I have learned this through lived experience as a first-generation (maternal) and second-generation (paternal) immigrant of former Czechoslovakian and Eastern European Jewish people who fled their homelands to escape religious and ethnic persecution and landed in the USA. Generational trauma due to conflict, violence, and war impacts my health and well-being, which I recognize as a global issue that touches the lives of many.

As a white, queer, cis-gender woman, able-bodied with invisible disability, born and raised in the USA, am both impacted by and unintentionally complicit in systems of oppression that negatively impact health outcomes and derail possibilities for peace and healing justice. By living in this reality, I am motivated to co-create a world where all people are liberated, healthy, and live in peace.

To live the values of anti-racism and anti-colonialism in action, I commit to disrupt internalized attitudes and beliefs that may result in disproportionate harm to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color including LGBTQ2S+ and historically marginalized communities farthest from justice via ongoing reflection, education, and engagement.

My work is primarily engaged on the traditional lands (stolen lands – a process made possible through predominantly Black and African slavery, labor, and exploitation) where the Upper Chinook: Multnomah/Clackamas/Wasco, Chinook Nation, Clatstop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and an Urban Native American population with over 380 federally recognized Tribes in the Portland Metropolitan area have, had, and will continue to call home.

Michelle Helman Consulting, LLC is a COBID certified woman-owned, emerging and disadvantaged small business in the State of Oregon - WBE/DSB/ESB certification #13100.

NAICS Codes: 611430, 541690, 541611, 541990
NIGP Code: 96105