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!​

Photo of Michelle Helman sitting in a chair.

Principal Consultant + CEO
Michelle is passionate about facilitating design and education processes that foster connection and collaboration. She brings 20+ years of experience partnering with global leaders on community-driven change projects such as the Colombian peace process, peace-tech and health innovation in East Africa, and gun violence prevention in the USA. Michelle is a Doctoral Candidate and Peace & Health Innovation Fellow at the University for Peace, a Rotary Peace Fellow, and a Senior Fellow at Portland State University’s Center for Public Service. Holding a MA in Peace & Conflict Studies and a BA in Anthropology, Michelle is also trained as an improviser, mediator, Wilderness First Responder, and Spanish medical interpreter which she learned to speak as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Perú. She loves to read paperback books and write haiku.

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

Approach + Values

• ​Trauma-Informed and Healing-Centered - We integrate an understanding of the experience of trauma in the body and nervous system; We engage somatic embodiment with experiential learning and reflection leading to decreased burnout, increased resiliency, and healing.
• Equity, Justice, and Co-Liberation - Beyond inclusion and diversity, we embrace pluriversality to co-create spaces where YOU define what successful processes and outcomes mean for you and the communities you work with.
• Data & Design Justice - We believe change is possible, nonlinear, and complex - and that conflict can be generative; We use our evidence-based approach to assess, examine, and acknowledge power structures.
• Prioritize Relationships - We work in collaboration with you, and maintain a goal of connection & belonging; We understand harm and healing both happen in relationship; We honor connection to people, lived experiences, and place. 
• Embrace Uncertainty - We ask questions and trust that YOU 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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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 US, I 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