We recently connected with Rachel Cohen and have shared our conversation below.

Rachel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

My journey to starting my business began well before I even realized I was on that path. Leading up to it I had purposely been seeking a variety of experiences. I worked in non profits, for profits, government and academia across sectors including aging, community development, environmental conservation, housing, health care, social services and public health. I worked in rural, suburban and urban communities and with each position I would get restless. I’d struggle because each place I worked saw the world as siloed. You could only build housing or only provide long term care without addressing the whole person like their social connections, access to food or ability to access parks and more. I have a background in social work and community planning with a specialization in aging and I see the world as a beautiful interconnected web of all the dimensions of our lives. At that point I had spent 20 years working for other people, fulfilling their visions and trying to fit in their boxes.

I held a vision for truly age friendly communities, places where we can grow up and grow older. and I knew that my multi-dimensional perspective and my drive to support mission driven entities to do more and do better was a needed combination. Yet, I was brought up in a culture that instilled in me that success was getting a job, working hard and progressing up a ladder. Throughout my life I’ve had moments of clarity in which I become aware that I needed to take a different path and do what I call shaking the snowglobe of life and make a big change getting more aligned with my true self many of these involved a combination of professional and personal changes like moving to Israel to explore my heritage and environmental interests, moving to Michigan to work for National Wildlife Federation and start my own nonprofit and moving to Colorado heeding the call of the mountains.

When I took the leap to start Aging Dynamics, I had recently been laid off from a job where I was very unfulfilled clearly a sign from the Universe yet I was also at a point in my life where I was feeling both steady and energized. I owned a house in a great neighborhood in Denver, adopted my soulpup Charlie, and was dating my future husband and greatest cheerleader. It was time to shake the snowglobe of life and bring my vision to life.

I took the leap at the right time for me. I needed all of the other experiences to prepare me to create my own path.

Rachel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

From very early in my life I discovered my passion for healing the world. It began with protecting the environment. I was crowned the Recycling Queen at age 12 when I encouraged four of my friends’ families along with my own to recycle everything possible. Weekly my Dad drove me from house to house filling the car with cans, bottles and cardboard and dropping it off at the local recycling center. I marched on Washington for immigration rights, religious freedom and environmental conservation. For high school graduation my parents gave me the world in the form of a glass paperweight, they were confident in my vision of healing the world. As I launched my professional journey, I was eager to learn everything from everyone. I worked in housing, social services, environmental conservation, community organizing, health care, aging services at non profits, for profits, government agencies and academia. I saw the world differently than most. Instead of a series of siloes e.g. housing, environment, social services I saw the world as a tapestry of all different sectors positioning me to be a bridge builder across communities.

It was not long before I understood that it was not going to be Me alone healing the world, it was going to take ALL of us. I also realized to do this though we have to build the capacity of staff, board and community to more effectively fulfill their missions regardless of entity type (non profit, for profit, government) and this became my professional mission…raise all boats and together we will heal the world.

To do this I created Aging Dynamics, a national consulting firm that is mission driven…we are committed to building the capacity of diverse organizations to create healthy age-friendly communities, places where all people can grow up and grow older with access to all parts of their communities. My diverse background and extensive experiences with many different types and sizes of organizations positioned me well to ask the tough questions, encouraging my clients to go deeper, identify root causes, consider non-traditional collaborations, collect and analyze data to fully understand impact and commit to being inclusive and accessible by consistently reexamining practices, communication methods and organizational culture.

Aging Dynamics works across organizations and communities from boards to staff to program participants demonstrating inclusivity and accessibility practices. We offer strategic planning with a focus on action and implementation, capacity building, coalition formation and strengthening and facilitation of board retreats, design sprints and more.

There are many moments I am proud of since starting Aging Dynamics like seeing a client actually use their strategic plan as a true road map coming back to me three years later for a refresh with a dashboard of accomplishments; board members who dreaded yet another tension filled discussion reflecting on how much fun they had during a workshop I facilitated designed to help them identify the root causes of the problem and design action steps to move through and beyond the situation; and community members whose voices were historically ignored finally having opportunities to contribute to the future plans in their own neighborhoods through interpretation and translation of materials along with seats at the decision making table.

I am proud that I have created a company that truly lives our values of integrity through honest communication and having the tough conversations, being genuine building a foundation of trust with our clients, centering our purpose and commitment to heal the world alongside our clients and being inclusive to ensure diverse participation.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Word of mouth is by far the best source of new clients for me. I strive to build a trusted relationship with every client leading with integrity. I do not hesitate to share if we hit a barrier or an unanticipated challenge. I go above and beyond for all of my clients and will often bring them new opportunities whether that is a potential partnership or funding. They know that they get a breadth of experience and extensive network when they work with me. Their success is extremely important to me. This trust and high quality work products contribute to the ease of making referrals. I also receive referrals through other consultants who see how I treat my clients and have either worked with me or seen the results of projects. These relationships are extremely important to me as I will also often make referrals for my peers.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In March 2020 when the world shut down, two thirds of my clients also froze. I was in the midst of completing three strategic planning processes, conducting focus groups, and building a community coalition. I’d been through the economic crisis of 2008 as a consultant working for another company and I experienced our business tanking and the owner quickly pivoting with new business lines. This time was different though as the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting both business and personal life and the vast majority of my client meetings, planning sessions, focus groups were happening in person. My facilitation tools and activities were all designed for in person and were very hands on. Being virtual put me at a real disadvantage as I not only gained energy from being in person but also relied on reading people’s body language to move through discussions. Video meetings made this VERY difficult.

I had to pivot and FAST. I quickly adapted activities, found online tools like Google Jamboard and Miro to help with brainstorming. I learned how to use more videos and other visually engaging methodologies to keep participants interested. I changed my processes to include shorter meetings, time for well being check ins and did walking meetings by phone to stay active. I learned how to include interpretation in online meetings, not require use of camera to ensure equity and offer phone only options, which offered a physical and mental relief after staring into a camera for days at a time. In essence, I became an online facilitator overnight with expertise in wellbeing (physical and mental).

For those projects that had frozen, I worked with my clients to adapt the engagement to either a different focus more on emergency management or more short term vs long term planning.

Throughout the three years of the pandemic I continuously assessed effectiveness of the various tools and methodologies, experimented with different engagement approaches and relied on my curiosity to seek out new practices and tools while continuing to keep my mission and my clients’ missions at the center, that was one pivot I was NOT going to make….mission at the center always.

My whole business approach has changed and while we may not have distancing protocols in place any longer I am committed to continuing to incorporate all the lessons from this time. For instance, there have always been people who were either not comfortable or for health (physical or mental) reasons were not able to be in person. I am committed to continuing to offer hybrid options whenever possible, using various methodologies to ensure engagement and encouraging wellbeing being a priority. I also now have discussions with my clients about what they are leaving behind and bringing forward from this experience. While pivots were necessary, I never pivoted from my core values and mission.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aging-dynamics.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbcohen
• Other: www.linkedin.com/company/aging-dynamics