Meet Keith Miller

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

Like many good things in life, chance and serendipity were what initially brought me into TerraLuna Collaborative. In 2012, I was bike commuting home from the University of Minnesota. I had just started a PhD program in evaluation studies and I was eager to get home to make dinner for my spouse and walk my dog.

As it turns out, my bike route passed the first ever gathering of evaluators that would eventually make up TerraLuna Collaborative’s founding members. 

As I was rolling by the meeting, “Keith Miller, get up here!,” rang out. I stopped my bike, looked up, and saw a small group of people I knew from grad school. They were waving me up to a balcony. They would, in short order, introduce me to the idea of forming an evaluation cooperative. Being the sucker for adventures I am, it didn’t take much to convince me, I was in.

That small group would, over the course of the next half year, meet regularly, to dream up a vision for TerraLuna Collaborative, our values, our ideal clients, and the change we wanted to support through our work. We strategized how we’d build and run what would later become a one of a kind business model in the world of evaluation. Six months later, we officially incorporated TerraLuna Collaborative. 

It’s been eight years since we first started building TerraLuna. Some of our founding members have left TerraLuna to pursue other things. We’ve had members join and we’ve had members leave. Our membership has in many ways become what we originally envisioned TerraLuna to be and that is why I continue to do my work through Terraluna.

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?

TerraLuna is its members - Every member (current and past) has left an imprint on our identity. We the members shape TerraLuna into our collective identity. I love working with people who want to do the hard work of creating something together.

Personal and professional growth - TerraLuna has been the home for many relationships with members, employees, consultants, and clients that have shaped both my personal and professional growth. 

Whole selves - Much of this growth is that we at TerraLuna have committed to being a whole self organization. We bring our whole selves together to do our work. 

Vehicle to explore and push the boundaries of evaluation - TerraLuna often gets to work with clients who are willing and ready to push the boundaries of evaluation, research, and facilitation practice, seeking learning practices and strategies that promote an equitable and just society.