Selected Successes & SMALL MIRACLES

Leverages your strength • Uses your superpowers • Delivers exceptional value

giving people and organizations an opportunity to unearth their superpowers SINCE 1993

  • In December of 2023, the new Eugene Family YMCA Don Stathos Campus opened its doors, marking the end of a decade-long capital campaign to raise more than $48 million and years of work to provide new programming for families, youth, young adults, and seniors. The Goddess provided grant support for 6 years.

  • Pullman Regional Hospital received a $300,000 grant from the Sunderland Foundation to renovate former hospital administrative offices into a clinical and educational space for its newly established Family Medicine Residency program. (2020)

  • The Eugene Family YMCA received a $350,000 grant from the Murdock Charitable Trust for the This is Y Capital Campaign. (2020)

  • The Eugene Mission received a $176,500 grant from the Murdock Charitable Trust for program expansion to serve individuals experiencing homelessness. (2020)

  • Pullman Regional Hospital received a federal grant for $197,763 (year one of a three-year $600,000 grant) from HRSA to provide health coaching/motivational interviewing in acute & primary care settings and a $250,000 grant from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust to purchase new equipment to enhance and expand current cardiology services. (2019)

  • Murdock Charitable Trust awarded a $196,000 grant to help A Family For Every Child to establish a development program. With the support from a $50,000 Spirit Mountain Community Fund (SMCF) grant and a $60,000 Bill Healy Foundation grant in 2015, AFFEC will continue to increase the number of Oregon placements through adoptions and/or children reunited with kith or kin (biological family or those who loved them before the children came into care), and to advocate for sustainable long-term system change resulting in improved outcomes for “hard-to-place” children stuck in the foster care system. AFFEC was awarded a $50,000 grant from both SMCF and The Bill Healy Foundation in 2013. (2015)

  • 2014 was a benchmark year for projects that integrated medical and behavioral health. Benton County, Oregon, was awarded a $236,065 grant from Health and Human Services to integrate mental health into primary care and improve access to care through the Affordable Care Act. Willamette Family, Inc. was awarded a $125,000 grant from Trillium Community Health Plan to support the integration of primary care into a behavioral health setting, and pilot a Per Person Per Month cost model for 1,200 TCHP adult patients. (2014)

  • Contracted by Northwest Health Foundation to work with a coalition of health service providers in Lane County to apply to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve care. The Oregon Health Authority was awarded a $2 million Adult Medicaid Quality Grant from CMS. (2012)

  • Assisted Lane County nonprofit organizations and agencies to secure more than $3 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funds. (2009)

  • Co-directed a university-based research institute that developed a model of deliberative democracy which offers a practical opportunity for all citizens to participate, provides citizens extensive information about the nature of the policy problem, engages citizens in the same problem-solving context as elected officials, and uses rigorous methods. Four of the large-scale deliberative processes are the subject of “The practice of deliberative democracy: Results of four large-scale trials” by Edward C. Weeks, Public Administrative Review, 60,(4): 360-372 (2000). Sacramento Decisions, an 18-month “participatory budgeting” process conducted for the City of Sacramento, California (1996) is highlighted in the books Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy by Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015) and The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule is Giving Way to Shared Governance... And Why Politics Will Never Be The Same by Matthew Leighninger. (Vanderbilt University Press, 2006).

The Goddess? That’s Bold.

I am often asked, “How did you become the Goddess of Grants?”

Ever the fashionista and trekking the world in high heels—whether working on environmental tourism in Belize or refugee resettlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina—I became lovingly known as the “Diva of Democracy.” When President Slobodan Milosevic heightened ethnic violence and unrest across the Bosnia-Serbia border in 1997, I left the University of Oregon to develop grants at Lane Community College. Upon introducing me to the board of education, the president quipped, “Well, she’s been known as the Diva of Democracy, so we’ll have to give her an appropriate moniker….” The name just stuck. People introduce me as “The Goddess” more often than they use my given surname. Truthfully, I believe people were simply afraid to say “Bum.” After several years, and some notoriety, I ultimately embraced the name for my business. After all, it has more cache than Bumgardner Consulting.

leading innovative, large-scale citizen involvement projects

 Lori co-coordinated Shaping Eugene’s Future, an 18-month project for the Eugene Planning Commission. In that capacity, she helped develop high-level policy initiatives, requiring innovation and collaboration with the City Council, senior management, and the public to resolve a long-standing community conflict and to set the strategic direction for growth management and urban design. Working collaboratively, she helped frame issues and alternatives for the Council, worked on cross-functional teams, and had lead responsibility for designing and implementing the community involvement process, including multiple community surveys and community workshops. The miracle is that the City Council unanimously voted to accept the citizen recommendations. This effort became a national model of public engagement and was replicated in cities across the US, including  Sacramento, CA,  Fort Collins, CO,  and St. Paul, MN. See "The practice of deliberative democracy: results from four large-scale trials / Edward C. Weeks" in The Age of Direct Citizen Participation by Nancy C Roberts (2008).

Bringing the community spirit to OREGON community colleges

In 2004, Lori, in her position as Lane Community College’s Grants Development Director, was the first to develop a successful proposal on behalf of 14 of the 17 Oregon community colleges, resulting in a series of grants totaling $750,000 from the Oregon Community Foundation to provide scholarships to early childhood education students. She worked out a formula based on FTE that allowed every college to benefit. When asked about this, Lori responded, “Not all colleges have development staff. Competing individually for the funds seemed silly when there was a simple win-win solution. Nevertheless, working out the proposal and formula details year after year was no easy task.”

Before the goddess of grants, she was the diva of democracy

Lori is very proud of her work as Associate Director of the Deliberative Democracy Project, a research institute hosted by the University of Oregon, from 1993 to 1997. The mission of the Project was to revitalize civic culture, improve the nature of civic discourse, and generate the political will necessary to take effective action on pressing problems.

Tuzla, the third largest city of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is northeast Bosnia's economic, cultural, educational, health and tourist center. It is an educational center and is home to two universities. During the Bosnian War for Independence 1992-95, the town was the only municipality not governed by nationalist authorities. Tuzla is regarded as one of the most multicultural cities in the country and has managed to keep the pluralist character of the city throughout the Bosnian War and after. Refugees in their town, Serbs and Croats, though biologically related, had been expelled from their homes by force and occupied “tribal enemy” houses. The Mayor of the City of Tuzla, Selim Bešlagić, believed that a multiethnic population structure and interethnic trust could be revived and was eager to restore democratic processes.

Even though Serb and Croat families in Tuzla lived in segregated parts of town, their young children attended school together. Children who were having birthday parties wanted to invite their schoolmates. Celebrations were hosted at the school because the children couldn’t go to an individual home. The school became a green zone of sorts. While the children enjoyed the festivities, parents who accompanied their young children silently lined the walls.

Partners for Development (PfD) is an American nonprofit organization working to improve the public health, food security, and economic well-being of underserved, vulnerable communities - often in conflict locations. Shortly after the Dayton Agreement ended the Bosnian War in 1995, PfD began working in Bosnia-Herzegovina to rebuild connections and trust between the government and private sector by advising policy and agriculture. Working closely with the Mayor of Tuzla and hundreds of farmers and their families, this story was shared with a PfD employee. He had an “aha” moment as a University of Oregon alumnus.

Lori worked on refugee resettlement until December 1997. When an attack on one of the recognizable white Toyota Land Cruisers carrying humanitarian workers in Bosnia and Albanian ethnic conflict ramped up in Serbia, her contract came to an abrupt end. Lori, a solo parent of two, was relieved to return to the US safely.

Soon after, guerrilla activities reached significant proportions and elicited brutal Serb countermeasures. In February of 1998, Slobodan Milošević sent troops to crush a new ethnic Albanian uprising in Kosovo.