About Kate Noble
Coach, Lead Consultant & Founder
I'm Kate Noble, Founder and Lead Consultant of Colibri. Creating opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas, relationships, and practices to expand good in the world is my mission. I have partnered with over 50 organizations making change within the sectors of regenerative agriculture, the arts, community development, climate and energy, racial justice, education, immigration reform, and health and wellbeing.
As a strategy partner, developmental evaluator, and facilitator, I coach my clients to stay grounded in their intentions while adapting to emerging demands and opportunities. By growing their strengths and fully living out their values, they can make a bigger difference.
I am adept at working on multiple levels of social change. My services range from initiative and program development to organizational change management to coaching groups and individual leaders. Customizing my approach to the unique needs of each project, I help my clients:
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Imagine new potential and set intentions
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Develop and explore critical questions
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Synthesize perspectives and connect dots to make thoughtful decisions
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Take the best action to expand the good in their work
I hold a Master of Public Policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs where I focused my degree on theories and methods of leadership, community engagement, and program evaluation. My career began as a youth job corps supervisor, and then I worked as a bilingual educator at Minneapolis Public Schools (I speak Spanish and English). Prior to starting Colibri I was a Managing Consultant at The Improve Group, a strategic planning, facilitation, and evaluation firm in Minnesota.
I live in Minneapolis, MN and love having meaningful conversations with my friends and family, learning new things to expand my perspective, visiting new and old places, and practicing yoga as a student and teacher.
My full resume is linked here.
Guiding principles
These five principles are the core of my consulting practice:
Get to the heart of what matters
Consultants should alleviate challenges and create clarity, not just generate information. I get to the heart of what matters by listening carefully, directly addressing clients’ core concerns, providing new understanding, and increasing meaningful choices in a clear and immediately useful way.
Advance antiracism, equity and inclusion
My blind spots and those of my clients are assumed and acknowledged as a starting place from which to actively mitigate racism and other biases to advance equity. I continually educate myself on structural racism and inequity and work with my clients, advisors, and community members to identify and eliminate structural barriers to equity. I acknowledge intersectionality and seek perspectives from people often left out of decision-making, especially from the people most directly affected by our thoughts and actions.
Craft rigorous methods in service of upstream solutions
I am curious, intellectually disciplined, and dedicated to quality. I explore “both/and” thinking and work to support my clients from slipping into “either/or,” one-solution mindsets. I probe my own and others’ surface-level interpretations of data and resist the appeal of jumping to quick conclusions. Instead I prioritize deep understanding of root causes and look upstream for long-term and catalytic solutions. I combine rigorous methods with a practical mindset from project design to final reporting.
Model facilitative leadership and participatory learning
I believe that human systems are optimized through engagement. As a leader and consultant, I emphasize participation to create robust feedback loops, access the unique lived experiences and expertise of all stakeholders, and generate solutions that authentically reflect the people most directly affected by our work.
Be relational and have fun
Expertise, resources, and even hard work are underutilized when they are not accompanied by trusting relationships and collegial rapport. I mitigate the stress of the modern workplace, and do my best work, when I connect with, support, and enjoy my colleagues as human beings. I practice gratitude for the opportunity to do great work in service to positive community change. I am an intentional and thoughtful communicator and structure projects to support highly transparent and consistent communication.
Education & training
Full resume here
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Master in Public Policy, Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota (2011-2013)
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Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, University of Puget Sound (2003-2007)
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Mindfulness Coaching School, International Coach Federation credential process (2020-current)
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Racial Justice Facilitator Program, YWCA (February 2020)
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Technology of Participation training in Strategic Planning, Facilitation Methods, and Designing for Change (2016-2018)
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Registered Yoga Teacher training - 200 hours, Durga's Tiger School, Ecuador (November 2019)
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Conversations at the Growing Edge, coaching training in adult stages of development, Growth Edge Consulting (February 2018)
Approaches & frameworks
For evaluation & learning
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Principles-Focused Evaluation, Utilization-Focused Evaluation, and Developmental Evaluation, Michael Quinn Patton
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Community Responsive Evaluation, The Improve Group
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Culturally Responsive Evaluation, Stafford Hood, Rodney Hopson, Karen Kirkhart
For strategy & planning
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Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Marie Brown
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Real-Time Strategic Planning, La Piana Consulting
For coaching
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Mindfulness and centering techniques, including practices from the Mindfulness Coaching School
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Adult stages of development, Changing on the Job, Jennifer Garvey Berger
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Cynefin framework for decision making
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Systems thinking frameworks and tools
For facilitation
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Racial equity facilitation methods
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Art of Hosting convening methods
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Deep Democracy facilitation methods
