Meet Jeff Severns Guntzel

What brought you or led you to TerraLuna? How did you get here?

I had been a journalist for fifteen years. I loved the work, but was interested in taking my toolbox to a different kind of job site. I was also looking to do meaning-making in new ways. I wanted to learn a more collaborative kind of meaning-making where the story being told is informed in creative ways by the people most impacted by that it. TerraLuna's thoughtful, mixed-methods approach to this was a perfect fit.

Why has it become your evaluation/facilitation home? Why did you commit, stay, choose to become a member? What about why we choose to work this way? 

I've had many professional homes, and few have felt like they suited me. I often felt as though I was having to bend my way of thinking and working to fit the often out-of-sync legacy culture of the organization. I came on early enough that I was able to be part of building TerraLuna and, from the earliest days, have felt comfortably at home and supported by brilliant, kind, and creative colleagues.

The work I do is utilization-focused. How can the products of my work be used? What research methods and narrative forms can I draw from or create to give the stories and information the most power and portability?

My work draws on the methods of investigative journalism qualitative research, and Developmental Evaluation. I aim to support the work of illuminating systemic patterns that harm or marginalize individuals and groups. At TerraLuna, this rigorous work is fully supported and nurtured by colleagues who have shown me new possibilities, and how to be more fully myself as I do the work.