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Paul Schmitz builds the collective leadership of organizations and communities to achieve greater and more equitable social impact through his roles as Senior Advisor at The Collective Impact Forum and CEO of Leading Inside Out. He is an author, speaker, trainer, and consultant who has delivered more than 200 keynotes and trainings around the world focused on leadership development, collaborative culture, racial equity, community engagement, social innovation, and collective impact.

Paul is the author of Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up (Jossey Bass, 2011). The book is based on lessons learned from 21 years leading Public Allies, an innovative leadership development program that helped more than 5,000 passionate and diverse young leaders across the country begin careers working for community and social change.

Paul is a steward and former faculty member of The Asset-Based Community Development Institute. Paul previously served on the boards of Independent Sector, The Corps Network, Playworks, The United Way of Greater Milwaukee, and was the co-chair of Voices for National Service, which led advocacy for AmeriCorps and other national service programs.

Paul wrote an "On Leadership" blog in The Washington Post from 2009 to 2012. Paul also co-chaired the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign's Civic Engagement Policy Group, was a member of The Obama-Biden Transition Team, helped establish and serve the White House Office of Social Innovation, and was appointed by President Obama to The White House Council for Community Solutions.

Paul is an honors graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 2014, Paul was appointed the first Innovator in Residence at Georgetown University's Beeck Center for Social Innovation. He has also been recognized by The Rockefeller Foundation as a Next Generation Leadership Fellow, by The Nonprofit Times three separate years as one of the 50 most influential nonprofit leaders in America, and by Fast Company Magazine with their Social Capitalist Award for innovation. He lives in Milwaukee with his wife where they raised 5 children.

Consulting, Training, Coaching, and Consulting Services

Often in partnership with Dominique Samari of Kin Consultant Group, we work with organizations and networks to provide training, coaching, and consulting services. We have worked on a variety of issues from grass roots organizations to billion-dollar foundations and large government agencies. Recent projects include youth homelessness in Baltimore, MD; child welfare in Los Angeles, CA; racial equity in K12 education in San Antonio, TX; youth mental health state-wide in WI; K-12 education in Portland, ME; affordable housing in Coachella Valley, CA; food security in greater Pittsburgh, PA; and early childhood education in Montgomery County, MD. Our work is focused on the following areas of our experience:

• Collective Impact: We help coalitions develop and strengthen the strategies, structure, and culture to move population and systems change better together through networks.
• Strategic Planning: We help build results-based strategic plans that help groups create clear goals/results, strategies, performance metrics, and implementation workplans.
• Racial Equity and Inclusion: We work with organizations and coalitions to build racial equity and inclusion plans, strategies, and practices to create more equitable cultures, representation, and impact.
• Community Engagement: We help groups develop plans, strategies, and practices informed by asset-based community development to build initiatives that do work with communities instead of to or for communities.
• Systems Change: We help groups analyze systems change levers such as public narratives, disconnections within systems, power, resource flows, practices, and policies, and build comprehensive, integrated systems change strategies including advocacy where appropriate.
• Leadership Development: We have helped groups develop programs for developing talent and facilitated learning communities for leaders in and across fields.
• Adaptive Leadership: We have helped groups develop options to solve for complex challenges and conflicts in their organizations and networks.
• Team Building and Culture: We help groups build values-based cultures that are reinforced through systems, practices, and protocols that create more inclusive, trusting, accountable teams and organizations.
• Facilitation: We have helped organizations and networks design and facilitate more interactive, engaging, and productive meetings and events.
• Sticky Storytelling: We have supported groups in how to communicate more effectively through persuasive arguments and illustrative stories.

Website: www.leadinginsideout.org
Email: paul@leadinginsideout.org

Resources

Here are some of the books, resources, and tools I've shared with the field:

• Book: Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up by Paul Schmitz (Jossey Bass: 2012)
• Reckoning with the U.S. Election: 10 Reflections and Recommendations for Collective Impact Networks (Collective Impact Forum, 2025)
• Backbone Leadership is Different: The Skills and Mindset Shifts Needed for Collective Impact co-authored with Dominique Samari (Collective Impact Forum, 2024)
• Racial Equity Toolkit co-authored with Samari (Collective Impact Forum, 2023)
• Centering Equity in Collective Impact co-authored with Sheri Brady, Jennifer Juster, John Kania, Mark Kramer, and Junious Williams (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2022)
• 10 Dangers to Collective Impact by Paul Schmitz (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2022)
• Making Meetings Work: lessons on facilitating engaging and productive groups, by Paul Schmitz (Collective Impact Forum, 2018)
• Community Engagement Toolkit by Paul Schmitz (Collective Impact Forum, 2017)
• Community Engagement Matters (Now more than ever) co-authored with Melody Barnes, (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2016)
• Needle-Moving Community Collaboratives: A Promising Approach to Addressing America's Biggest Challenges, co-authored Michele Jolin and Willa Seldon, (Whitepaper for The White House Council of Community Solutions, Bridgespan Group, 2012)
• More at www.leadinginsideout.org