Combining love, humor, and hard work to advance equity and justice
Consultant. Researcher. Strategic Learning Partner.
Helping social sector organizations "do good, better."
Shahla partners with organizations to design and implement equity-focused evaluation approaches that:
Center the experiences of those most directly impacted
Surface insights that examine the root causes of inequities and identify levers for strengthening systems
Elevate actionable opportunities to shift and share power so that individuals and communities can thrive
As a strategic learning partner, Shahla supports organizations to:
Assess landscape needs and ripe opportunities for change
Prioritize, test, learn from, and refine strategic approaches
Align strategy with organizational and community capacity, resources, and values.
Shahla works with organizations and teams to strengthen their capacity to:
Develop a learning practice that uses data to inform strategy, assess impact, and enhance services
Effectively partner with community to shift and share power
Adopt trauma-informed policies and practices that nurture the workforce and enhance consumer experience
About Shahla.
Shahla de Leon, MPH is a passionate public health leader committed to the vision that all people have what they need to be healthy and thrive. Shahla brings a background in public health and a passion for working at the intersection of policy, prevention, and direct services to improve outcomes for individuals and communities. She believes that data and powerful storytelling can help drive strategic decision-making and responsive programming. She has extensive experience providing strategy, evaluation, and capacity building support to social sector organizations, funders, and collaboratives, practicing deep listening to elevate the voices of those most directly impacted, and navigating complex processes amidst emergent contexts in serving of learning.
Shahla brings deep expertise with programs and initiatives across public health, education, and youth development sectors that aim to advance equity and wellbeing, bringing a specific focus on birth justice and early childhood. She has designed and led varied research and evaluation projects ranging from program-level evaluations to evaluations of long-term, systems change initiatives. She is adept at aligning learning approaches with the needs, priorities, and capacities of diverse clients and audiences. Shahla has sharpened her skills for meaningfully evaluating progress and impact and for supporting partners to develop a practice of using data to inform strategy.
Shahla embraces the critical and ongoing practices of identity conscious self-reflection, attention to power dynamics and the systems oppression that create and uphold them. Shahla is an attuned leader, bringing a collaborative and adaptive approach to navigating challenges, grounding in shared purpose, and centering equity as both a means and an ends in social change work.
Shahla has supported clients including:
Answer
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Break Free Alliance
California Health Care Foundation
College Futures Foundation
David and Lucille Packard Foundation
Edna McConnel Clark Foundation
Exhale
Family Care Network
Forward Through Ferguson
First 5 Sonoma County
First 5 San Mateo County
First 5 Los Angeles County
Generate Health
Grove Foundation
Huckleberry Youth Programs
Missouri Foundation for Health
Sand Hill Foundation
San Francisco Department of Public Health
Silicon Valley Community Foundation Center for Early Learning
Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation
The Health Trust
Trauma Transformed