Michelle Beasley

I thrive at building and convening the teams and the rooms that bring the missing pieces, people, capital, ideas, to the table so real problems actually get solved.

I'm driven by the belief that the best solutions don't come from the people already in the room. They come from whoever was left out of it, and the real work is noticing who that is and bringing them in before the plan gets made instead of after.

My career began learning how to coordinate resources and people across large, complex systems, federal agencies, philanthropy, local leadership, all moving toward one goal. That instinct, for figuring out who's missing from the table and getting them into it, took shape at OHSU, sharpened at Delphix, grew through interagency work at FEMA, and still shapes how I approach the work at NewStories.

At NewStories, I serve as strategist, where I designed and led the Paradise Learning Exchange, a community-to-community exchange for fire-affected communities across Northern California, built the ecosystem map that organizes our full funder and partner landscape, and rewrote our Re-Storying Disaster methodology to protect the people whose stories it's built from. I also run my own practice, Simple Clarity Moves Purpose, where I research and build strategies for how philanthropic capital could move faster and more directly to frontline communities, including work on faster-paying insurance models for wildfire, drought, and heat, so people get resourced based on what actually happened to them, not a slow claims process.

At my core, I'm passionate about connecting people, capital, and ideas, from community leaders and researchers to funders and policymakers, to turn convening into strategy and strategy into action. I'm especially inspired by how philanthropy, government, startups, and the communities carrying the most risk can partner together, so the people closest to the problem help shape the solution instead of just receiving it.

Core Pillars & Expertise:
Climate Strategy & Resilience: Hazard mitigation, adaptation, and recovery finance, backed by research like Conflict Resolution in Natural Resource Management (Winrock International).
Capital & Philanthropic: Exploring trust-based, participatory philanthropy and regenerative finance, building on direct participation at the Leadership Institute at the Global Philanthropy Forum to treat trust as essential infrastructure.
Executive Leadership & Facilitation: Designing institutional learning frameworks like the Online Strategic Planning Toolkit (Mercy Corps) and advising executives through change.