Impact That Begins With Community
Over time, our work has contributed to healthier and safer communities, with stronger bridges of trust and belonging. Our impact is rooted in community, strengthened through partnership, and grounded in a deep commitment to equity and healing.
Areas of Impact
Community Leadership & Healing Across Cultures
Community members across cultures, races, languages, and lived experience have stepped into spaces of courage to grow as leaders, advocate for community wellbeing, and build new relationships across groups—creating opportunities for connection and mutual understanding.
Systems Shaped by Community Voice & Lived Experience
Community experience has informed strategy, funding, and program design across systems that shape daily life, from food access and mental health to neighborhood environments and spaces for movement—shifting how organizational leaders listen, decide, and act.
Bridges Built Between Communities & Institutions
Where trust has been strained, this work has helped rebuild collaboration between communities and institutions grounded in shared accountability and more respectful, inclusive, and responsive relationships—strengthening genuine partnerships rooted in trust and shared commitment to the common good.
What We've Built Together
Across local, statewide, and multi-regional efforts, this work has contributed to:
- Hundreds of community leaders mobilized across cultures, languages, and lived experiences
- Organizational and coalition leaders supported in engaging communities with greater cultural humility, respect, and accountability
- Community voice integrated into organizational strategies, programs, and decision-making structures
- Hundreds of social services professionals enhanced their cultural humility and trauma-informed practices
- Cross-cultural trust strengthened in contexts where relationships between communities and institutions had been strained
- Measurable improvements in health behaviors and wellbeing, including food access and safer spaces for movement
What Our Partners Say
Project Snapshots
Building Community Power For Systems Change
Milwaukee Food System Changemakers
Tatiana Maida and Lee Valentyn co-designed and facilitated a bilingual leadership program for grassroots leaders most impacted by food insecurity. This program has created a trusted, healing-centered space where leaders build systems-thinking skills, cross-cultural relationships, and pathways for collective action.
Strengthening Community Health Systems Through Shared Stewardship
Northwest multi-regional initiative
The Northwest Community Health Innovation Lab convened six community health centers across Alaska, Oregon, and Washington to explore new ways of advancing thriving people and places through the Vital Conditions for Health and Well-Being framework. Tatiana was part of this multi-regional collaboration in partnership with Community Initiatives Network, the Rippel Foundation, and IP3—advancing deep community engagement, shared stewardship, and systems change across diverse contexts.
Centering Community as the Foundation for Mental Wellbeing
Community-Initiated Care Pilot — Kent, Washington
In partnership with Living Well Kent and Community Initiatives Network, Tatiana co-designed and co-facilitated a mental health and wellbeing initiative rooted in community networks as the foundation for care, connection, and belonging. The project strengthened the capacity of Somali, Afro-Latinx, African American, and Iraqi community leaders to advance wellbeing, resilience, and mutual care through culturally grounded approaches.
Community Leadership Shaping Statewide Priorities
Healthy Early Leadership (Statewide Coalition – Wisconsin)
Tatiana was instrumental in the formation of Healthy Early Leaders, a statewide advisory group of community leaders within the Healthy Early Coalition. Through a long, reflective process grounded in the diverse lived experiences of participating communities, the group identified top priorities and solutions for organizations and institutions across Wisconsin to advance equitable health opportunities for children. Tatiana continues to support strategic planning and participatory leadership processes that strengthen trust, alignment, and shared direction between community and organizational leaders.
Reimagining How Institutions Listen and Learn
Community-Led Listening Sessions
Tatiana Maida led a University of Wisconsin–Madison initiative in collaboration with Laura Medina, Rossie Gittens, and three additional facilitators to design a bilingual and culturally grounded listening-session model.
The project identified priority needs and solutions in the state’s largest Latino communities through a culturally responsive process, while advancing a new approach to data collection that centers culture, civic power, and community leadership. The model later informed engagement practices for another statewide coalition.
Building Community Leadership to Advance Family Well-being
From education to community-driven change
At Sixteenth Street Community Health Centers, the largest Federally Qualified Health Center in Wisconsin, Tatiana Maida led a family-centered health education and advocacy initiative that improved the health of thousands of parents and children while building grassroots community leadership over more than a decade. Through Latinos por la Salud, nearly 100 grassroots leaders and health promoters expanded access to healthy food, created community-led movement spaces, conducted neighborhood assessments, and influenced safe streets policies in partnership with city officials and local coalitions.
Let's Create Impact Together
If you’re seeking a partner who leads with listening, works across cultures, and supports change that lasts, we’d love to connect.