Experience
Christine Rontal, MSW (she / they)
The drivers of my 25+ year career in the nonprofit sector have been an aptitude for organizational strategic, operation, and cultural design and a passion for community development, the natural environment, and relationship building. In each chapter of my professional life I have been intentional about the integration of these elements.
While at Columbia University, I pursued a Masters in Social Work with a focus on Social Enterprise Administration. While there, I was a change agent for the desegregation of unions as well as the advancement of international human rights. The administrative roles I played as a consultant to charitable foundations in New York and as the Executive Director of Virginia Garcia Memorial Foundation in Oregon focused on strengthening each nonprofit’s ability to ensure direct services were provided to the community. As a Commissioner for the City of Portland’s Human Rights Commission, I studied our City’s most vexing issues of inequity while partnering to create the Commission’s strategic plan and operating processes. My administrative-level work is grounded in community-based theory including Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Critical Race Theory, Sociocracy (Dynamic Governance), Movement Building, Real-Time Strategic Planning, Emergent Strategy, and Nonviolent Communication.
I’ve woven a passion into my path for building relationships with, and learning from people in, a diversity of geographic locations who have life experiences different from mine. As a rural health worker in Africa, I supported the efforts of my local friends in microfinance programs, the training of trainers, and national conference organization. In Alaska, I partnered with Alaska Native Tribal Councils to improve their community planning processes to advance the quality of life for their communities. In Peru, I directly served children living in street situations while assisting to streamline my host agency’s administrative processes. In my consulting practice, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know and support the work of change makers in Washington, California, Utah, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maine.
In Oregon, I pursue opportunities to build relationships that advance healthy communities and thriving lands with a variety of change makers. As an Executive Director, I supported access to healthcare for upwards of 80 different language speakers with a focus on the migrant farmworker community in Washington and Yamhill counties. As a consultant, I’ve had the great fortune to support the work of a variety of movements including conservation, land use, affordable housing, social justice, education, health and human services, the arts, and beyond.
As a volunteer, I spent valuable time on the Board of Directors for 1,000 Friends of Oregon where I had the opportunity to connect with folks from both rural and urban communities from across the state related to land use planning and policy. I currently provide pro bono support to the Leadership Fellows program, which nurtures and empowers communities of color across a diversity of cultures to strengthen organizations, educational institutions, and civic engagement in coastal, urban, and rural communities in Oregon.
The diversity and depth of my experience enables me to swiftly identify ways to improve a group’s strategy and operations while deftly navigating the unique cultures that define community, administrative, and direct service spaces to benefit our shared community.
The common thread that runs through my personal and professional lives is the innate drive to understand challenges and implement meaningful solutions to efficiently and effectively realize a vision with broad groups of people. Ultimately, I am interested in composition – be it a well-executed community impact strategy and implementation process, a piece of music, a healthy family, a garden design, or a landscape photo. While I’d like to say that I spend my free time in all of these areas, I mostly love to piece together the proverbial puzzles of strategies and administrative designs that improve our shared community and natural environment.
