Partners in Place

Partners in Place is a small business owned by Anne Forbes and located in Madison, Wisconsin. Anne is a teacher, writer, mentor, and facilitator, and all of these perspectives are expressed in her professional and volunteer commitments. Although the services provided by Partners in Place have evolved over the years, the purpose has always been to help individuals, groups, and communities live and learn with renewed connection to the natural world in their daily lives, with attention to mind, body, and spirit.

From its inception in 1996, Partners in Place offered a range of consulting services that focus on resource stewardship and growing a sense of place. For over ten years, I specialized in interactive meetings and events that build environmental partnerships and community collaborations.

Specifically, this means that:

• I am a skilled facilitator and an inventive designer of workshops, forums, and other participatory events.
• I coach leaders and planning teams through carefully designed strategies that are place-based, inclusive, innovative, and grounded in high quality local knowledge and scientific information.
• Central to these designs is my commitment to innovation in building respectful, results-oriented collaborations between citizens and experts.
• I take a pragmatic approach to working with clients to understand their timelines and establish a quality process that meets their needs.

In 2008 I took down my tried and true consulting shingle and followed my star through a time of transition. As is the tendency of creative projects, this one grew a life of its own, morphing over the years from workshop handouts, to the Wheels of Time and Place toolkit and products, to the learning opportunities through Homecomings: Your Place on Earth, Your Place in Time and Trees as Teachers.

As I turn to these new adventures, I remain rooted in the years of practice as an ecologist and consultant. If you are a former client looking for assistance, or a potential new client, I hope that these materials from my original consulting practice (Approach, Results) may be of use to you in thinking about your project. I continue to selectively offer my experience as a volunteer, mostly by coaching and mentoring some of the fine younger people coming up behind me, as well as to assist with issues and projects dear to my heart and my home place here in Wisconsin.