About Heartroot Consulting

Robin Horner, MPA—Principal

The heart root is a complex and resilient root system that anchors and nourishes many beautiful trees. Heartroot Consulting blends learning and evaluation strategies with the creativity and vision necessary to support clients in aligning their programs and impact with their core values.

I partner with innovative organizations and individuals committed to social justice to design and implement evaluation plans that help them ask the questions and access the information they need to achieve their goals. I am comfortable with in-person and virtual facilitation tools and strategies. I have a strong commitment to integrating community voices as well as gender, racial, LGBTQ, and other forms of equity throughout the evaluation process.

An evaluation practitioner since 2003 and a member of the American Evaluation Association, I have a master's degree in Public Administration and a certificate in non-profit leadership and strategic management from San Francisco State University. To deepen my skills in group leadership, planning, and facilitation, I earned a certificate in Technology of Participation (ToP) Strategic Planning from the Institute of Cultural Affairs. I have advanced spoken and written language skills in French and Spanish. My experiences in activism, K-12 education, youth mentorship, and dance contribute to who I am and how I work. I enjoy collaborating with clients to create opportunities to learn about their impact, build on their strengths, and fulfill their mission.

CURRENT & Recent Clients

Community-Centered Life Coaching

Arts & Wellness for Social Impact

Blooming Willow Coaching partners with people to discover their authentic voice and true purpose. Blooming Willow's signature Healing Centered Coaching model supports community members in experiencing deep healing and accessing untapped power for social change.

Heartroot Consulting innovates evaluation strategies to help identify and communicate the impact of this work.

Arts & Wellness for Social Impact

Grown Women Dance Collective catalyzes social impact through dance and wellness. Dance concerts foster connections across cultures, generations, and class, empowering dialogue and activism. Health and fitness programs promote adult healing and offer economic opportunities for young people.

Using Animating Democracy’s Aesthetic Attributes framework, Heartroot Consulting helped the organization integrate evaluative thinking into its work, develop a theory of change, and refine impact

assessment practices.

Health & Social Service Systems Support

Helping Organizations Reach Their Potential

LifeCourse Strategies provides strategic planning, meeting facilitation, community-based research, program development, and project management to public and non-profit organizations addressing the health and social service needs of underserved and vulnerable older adults and individuals with chronic illness and disabilities.

Heartroot Consulting contributes an array of evaluation and planning skills to LifeCourse Strategy projects, including evaluation design, data analysis, and developing and communicating program and policy recommendations.

Helping Organizations Reach Their Potential

Be the Change Consulting provides high-quality learning experiences and consulting to empower groups to reach their creative potentials. They provide training, facilitation, curriculum development, and coaching for youth development practitioners and organizational leaders and staff. BTCC develops and disseminates experiential, research-based tools grounded in social justice to increase social emotional learning and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Heartroot Consulting has advised on evaluation strategies, conducted data analysis, and designed presentations of findings to support facilitated discussions with organizational clients.