I am a values-driven and outcome-oriented consultant and facilitator with over 10 years of experience working with communities and in the public sector to create transformational change.
I am life-long lover of connecting with others and building community. Facilitation is the creative expression of my values, and my small way of shaping a more just world.
My facilitation practice first began while working with adult learners during college. I remember feeling alive as I led groups through reflective and exploratory learning processes, drawing on the rich life experiences and wisdom within the group. I delighted in the process of carefully weaving together each detail of a group experience, bringing the group into deep dialogues about what most matters to us.
I continued developing my facilitation skills as a program facilitator as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in the Brazilian Amazon and with middle and high school students at Girls Inc. of Holyoke. Program facilitation allowed me to experiment with different group processes, and with evoking joy and fun in my facilitation.
My graduate studies in Public Health and City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill refined my ability to facilitate multi-sector collaborative, creative and efficient planning processes toward specific outcomes and outputs. My outcomes-based facilitation skills was further strengthened during my time as the Community Partners Analyst for the Chatham County Manager’s Office, where I provided facilitative leadership for Chatham County’s 250th Anniversary Celebrations throughout a pandemic and coordinated the annual nonprofit funding process.
My facilitation work is deeply shaped by commitment to fully and equitably resourcing social justice and community-based organizations. In 2025, I founded New Legacy Lab, a community for community of individuals with access to wealth who bring a new orientation to giving that centers justice and the re-distribution of wealth and power. I am also an active donor organizer for social and environmental justice work in the Carolinas.
My facilitation approach draws on a range of techniques. I was trained and mentored by master visual and creative design facilitator Susannah Childers with Ah-ha!. I also am trained in Parker Palmer’s Circle of Trust and have experience with Open Space Technology, World Café, Sociocracy, the CoJourn Peers Support Model, and participatory facilitation techniques.
I am a proud graduate of Mount Holyoke College, and hold a dual-master’s degree in Public Health-Health Behavior and City and Regional Planning from UNC-Chapel Hill. I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. I am on the Board of Directors of the Triangle Community Foundation
I enjoy cooking delicious food for the people I love, tending to my backyard garden, and gathering with my neighborhood and community. I live with my husband Adams, sweet young child, maine coone Vivy, and 10 happy chickens in Chapel Hill, NC.
Hilary Pollan Facilitation 