sonja christionat koehler - founder & lead

Sonja’s life work is about making connections - making connections between what happens locally and globally, between vision and solution, between people whose synergy creates collective good. 

Through long-term strategy and broad-based engagement, Sonja supports cross-sector, multi-disciplinary networks in urban and rural settings. She designs and facilitates deliberative, learning and strategic planning experiences; plans and manages projects and budgets; provides leadership coaching; and acts as “brain-and-brawn-for-hire” for just about anything that intrigues her.  Sometimes she works solo, other times with a team.

Her portfolio spans from supporting a spectrum of early childhood development programs and initiatives to increase kindergarten readiness; focused strategies for various youth development programs and collaboratives across the cradle to career spectrum. She's delved into wildfire emergency planning, sparked museum exhibit designs, dove into sustainable fisheries, and learned a lot about nonprofit journalism.

Working with Social Policy Research Associates, she has created tools for innovative workforce programs for the US Department of Labor, helped launch gang violence prevention strategies for the County of Monterey and the City of Seaside, California, and co-designed an education and training program for disengaged-youth (which was awarded a $3 million US Department of Labor Workforce Innovation Fund Grant). At MK Communications, a public relations firm for public policy, she organized one of the largest voter registration drives in Chicago at the time. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa, she introduced youth and adults to the concept of “environmental protection,” and through the German Institute for Economic Research published and presented on transnational cooperation for research & development. 

Sonja has a Master of Public Affairs in Global and Local Development from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology, both degrees from Indiana University - Bloomington.  She grew up bilingually in Muncie, Indiana, USA and Berlin, Germany, has lived in Austria, Benin, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia. She gratefully resides in the Big Sur coastal mountains of California, USA.

“I appreciate that changes were made from the last meeting to this one; I feel heard as a community member.”  
- Participant, First 5 Monterey County Community Engaged Strategic Planning 2016