Allison Augustyn
Allison Augustyn is a former SAL staff member and current leadership and career coach, nonprofit consultant, and Design Thinking teacher. She works with people from all over the world to collaborate, design and act on social impact, idealized futures, and anti-racist practices, collaborating via Zoom/real life to write shared plans and bring them to people in positions of community and/or power.
Allison’s favorite SAL event was Louise Erdrich for how her stories electrified and brought the audience together instantly. She still remembers how you could feel the intensity of the audience listening and changing together in real time—she kept rubbing her arms to see if she was still herself, or if the audience had all grown into something bigger (both were true). Allison is forever inspired by the generosity of Erdrich’s words to do more and better support other’s lived experiences.
Allison is from Northern rural Wisconsin, practically Canada, and when she’s not working she can be found hiking the I-90 Corridor, long-distance cycling, traveling in other countries, or on a couch reading a book (sometimes in other countries). Her favorite books as a kid were anything by Beverly Cleary or Roald Dahl.
Her two favorite books right now are The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas, and Little Rabbit by Alyssa Songsiridej. She finds Giridharadas’ novel to be a profound gift, the collective wisdom of practiced activists and politicians, and actionable tactics to bridge significant divides in our daily work. And she loves Songsiridej’s perfect, complex, beautiful novel about body autonomy and love, a total joy to read while pondering the complexities of living in a female body in this society.
Allison’s personal motto is there is no failure, only learning.