About Julie Edsforth

I am a Washington state-based nonprofit consultant helping nonprofit leaders, organizations, and community initiatives build capacity, improve effectiveness, and amplify impact.

My consulting practice is more than my day job. It's a vehicle for me to contribute to the missions and highest aspirations of the organizations I serve, and an expression of my social, political, and environmental values.

I believe that bringing people together across different backgrounds and life experiences is how we build stronger communities and a better world. I have a fundamental belief in the power of working in partnership with diverse groups of people to tackle some of society's most complex problems. This work isn't easy - it requires humility, introspection, an examination of how privilege and biases get in the way, and a commitment to learning and growing from mistakes. I'm pragmatic at heart, always trying to step back and ask "who are we serving, how is this helping?"

Since hanging my shingle as a nonprofit consultant in 2008, I have been lucky to work with 100+ nonprofit organizations in the Pacific Northwest and across the country. I enjoy working with organizations of all shapes and sizes and across all issue areas – it keeps me flexible, perpetually learning, and able to cross-pollinate new ideas, innovations and best practices across sub-sectors.

My 30+ years in the nonprofit sector as an executive director, social worker, counselor, board member, consultant, donor and community volunteer have shaped my holistic, cross-functional consulting practice. This varied experience allows me to bring a compassionate and balanced perspective to organizational growth and change management, while relating firsthand to the challenges and rewards of surviving and thriving in a dynamic nonprofit environment.

In addition to running Edsforth Consulting, I currently co-run Clover Search Works, a nonprofit executive search firm I co-founded in 2016. I am a graduate of Whitman College and have a Masters in Social Work from the University of Washington. Early in my career, from high school and college jobs in housecleaning and lifeguarding through a few formative years in the high tech industry, I gained business skills and life experience that I thoughtfully integrate into my nonprofit work.