With 16+ years of experience working with nonprofit organizations and in academia, Tera is an unwavering ally in community building, program development, grant writing, and volunteer mobilization. She is a certified Intercultural Development Inventory administrator, professional facilitator, and published author on equitable talent development. Tera brings fierce commitment to inclusive, ground-up systems change and to making sure the collective itself is the change it seeks to create.

Megan brings 14 years of experience in fundraising, strategy, and grant writing to the collective. A licensed attorney and Cultural Intelligence-certified facilitator, she has raised over $8.7M for clients and led organizations through major transitions. Megan’s analytical approach, equity lens, and gift for building trust make her one of the most effective strategic partners in West Michigan’s nonprofit and philanthropy communities.

Jodi Petersen, PhD is a researcher and evaluator who began her career wanting to help people who were incarcerated find success post-release and quickly realized that individual-level solutions can only go so far when people are navigating oppressive systems. That realization led her to a different kind of power: data, the language systems and funders actually listen to. Jodi founded Petersen Research Consultants to help nonprofit and government human services organizations measure and increase their real-world impact, serving as an external evaluator and community researcher for hundreds of organizations across the country. She helps organizations clarify their programming, define meaningful outcomes, and use what they learn to drive more equitable decisions closing the gap between doing good work and being able to prove it.

Erika L. Thomas, MA, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the founder of The Untangling Place, where she brings nervous system science and somatic practice into organizations carrying the weight of high-demand, high-stakes work. Erika's approach is trauma-informed, decolonizing, neurodiversity-affirming, and liberation-focused — helping teams move from surviving collective stress to genuinely regulating, reconnecting, and thriving together. She is the clinical mind behind G-TEP programming for frontline workers and leadership teams, and she brings that same depth of care to her work with The Starling Collective, including her collaboration with Dee on Ignite WithIN.

Dee (Deanna) Rolffs is a strategist, facilitator, coach, and systems thinker who works with executive leaders at the intersection of organizational theory, leadership development, and social justice. After years in nonprofit leadership, Dee launched into entrepreneurship in 2018 and went on to found L3 Catalyst Group, where they apply anti-oppression and liberatory frameworks to help organizations move through crisis, change, and complexity toward more equitable, sustainable futures. Dee specializes in illuminating root issues, building leadership and board capacity, and guiding teams through the deep personal and collective work that real organizational transformation requires.

Candace Lefke (she/they) is a queer, neurodivergent breathwork facilitator and somatic guide whose work is rooted in lived experience and a deep belief in the body's own wisdom. Candace blends breath work, embodied listening, and somatic practice to support nervous system regulation, emotional release, and genuine self-trust. They meet people exactly where they are, without positioning herself as anyone's healer or savior. She brings this same grounded, honest, non-hierarchical presence into her work, creating spaces where people's bodies and voices are fully honored as part of the path toward organizational and personal wholeness.