Natalie Brown’s business is finding out who is throwing babies into the river.

It’s an analogy she learned from one of her professors in the Wilfrid Laurier community psychology program, and the recent graduate uses it to describe her consulting firm, Common Thread Consulting.

“Imagine a river with all these babies in it, and we’re all down river frantically pulling babies out of the river,” Brown said.

CHARLOTTE PRONG PARKHILL PHOTO

“But none of us has time to walk to the other end of the river and say, “Who is throwing the babies in the river?’ “I like to think that I’m that person.” Brown specializes in facilitation, research and action that helps non-profits, government agencies and businesses to become more efficient as a community. It’s the service providers who are spending all their energy pulling babies out of the river.

“Sometimes people are just on their roadrunner legs, going into the community and doing the great work that they do.

Sometimes we just need to step back and ask, ‘Are we doing this as efficiently as we can? Is there a way we can improve overall community efficiency by working together?’” she said.

Because she is not a service provider, Brown can step back and look at the root causes of an issue, and the most efficient way to deal with it.

Celebrating the one-year anniversary of Common Thread today, she is already developing a roster of clients.

She worked with Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute to help them decide how to build an awareness campaign around intergenerational relationship building. She also helped to plan and run an event called One Small Act.

“I was with them through every step of the process,” Brown said.

For Peace Ranch in Caledon, which provides housing for people with mental health issues, she came in to evaluate their fundraising program.

“My slogan is facilitate, research, act. I take those three processes and I link them together.”

Brown moved from Owen Sound to Waterloo in 2003 for an undergraduate degree in psychology and then earned her master’s in community psychology, which looks at systemic issues, social justice and collaboration at a community level. She’s also a certified professional facilitator.

During grad school, Brown worked with a professor to create the Centre for Community Research, Learning and Action.

“Laurier has the only English-speaking community psychology program. We tend to stay local, so a lot of the graduates are floating around in the community and understand where I’m coming from,” she said.

“We’ve been very lucky. A lot of our executive directors are community psych graduates . . . and they’ve been influencing their organizations from that view point — collaboration, inclusiveness and diversity.” After graduating in 2009, Brown started contacting some of the people and organizations she had worked with during her student years. Many of them had projects they wanted her to undertake.

So she went to the Waterloo Small Business Centre and got started, registering as a business.

“The common thread of everything I do, and why I named my business that, is this relationship-building piece and allowing myself to work with the clients, and not for the clients,” Brown said.

In addition to her work at Common Thread, Brown is temporarily working fulltime at the Alliance for Children and Youth.

She also sits on a number of boards and committees, including the CCRLA at Laurier, the Volunteer Action Centre business council, and the Community-University Expo.

“I’m kind of a workaholic,” she admits.

But the community networking isn’t just about earning new clients.

“The thing I love about the business is that it’s a place where I really get to let all my passion out. I’ve found that place where you can be yourself, and really do what you love,” she said.

“Waterloo Region is a community rich with change and positive momentum. It’s a fabulous place to be.”
Common Thread Consulting
519-577-8408
natalie@commonthreadconsulting.ca

The year’s highlights

My first startup drinks – Coincidentally the day I registered my business was also the night of February startup drinks at McMullan’s. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet other small businesses and enter the world of the entrepreneurs. It was an overwhelmingly positive experience as I felt supported and celebrated in taking the leap into small business
Geographical exploration – After living in the Waterloo Region community for close to a decade it was wonderful to see new places, spaces and faces as I floated around the region doing site visits, attending events and sitting on different councils and committees!
Ignite 3 – “Follow your Passion: Using Talk for Social Change”  gave me the opportunity to speak to my community passions and use my voice to impact the way attendees think about “isms” in our everyday life. I used my 5 minutes to speak about taboo topics in hopes that if I speak up others may feel safe to follow suit.
OneSmallAct – After working in partnership with KCI, community organizations, the City of Kitchener and Working Reel Productions on September 29th we held the OneSmallAct event. This was a day to celebrate intergenerational community and was the first step towards building a stronger school and community relationship for the KCI community. With a keynote from Abhi Ahluwalia from unlearn and a fantastic 10 minutes film produced by Buddy from Working Reel Productions it was a night to remember!
Building my own Community – The number of fabulous people who live and work in the Waterloo Region is almost overwhelming. I have had the greatest year building new friendships, networking with super fantastic folks and taking the time to go to startup drinks, cinq a sept, ignite, Steel Rails, the KW Symphony or just hang out and play sports with a great group of other local small businesses (Go ABat!). The business community in the Region is so wonderful….I am proud and lucky to be a part of it!
Giving Back – On top of working with my clients and getting to know Waterloo Region in a new way I have had the opportunity to give back by sitting on different committees and volunteering with diverse groups . I currently sit on the Volunteer Action Centre Business Council as well as the CUExpo and throughout my year I also sat on mutltiple evaluation committees including the Evaluation Committee for the Alliance for Children and Youth.

Overall it’s going to be a hard year to beat! As I move into year two of work at Common Thread I am thankful to many people including Kurt my fiance and partner personally and professionally, Amy and Karl from CuteGecko for their brilliant work on my website, logo and overall branding, and so many more (you know who you are!)

Looking forward to the next chapter!