Adrian – Mary ZumBrunnen
Mary ZumBrunnen, the community development fellow in Adrian, is also the founder and chief executive officer of the One-Community Group. For almost two decades she has worked across communities at home and abroad focused on sustainable development to improve quality of life. As a young contractor, Mary learned the ups and downs of consulting as well as the power of partnership. Working in developing and industrialized countries, it became very clear to her that there is only so much one person may effectually impact. Therefore, since 2005 she has focused in on Michigan helping hundreds grow their community vision to fruition. Mary believes in paying it forward and offers rich training ground for those also wishing to give back to their community through One-Community Consulting’s unique social entrepreneur knowledge leadership system. Learn more about Mary’s background including: commitment to National Service, public health and regional food systems development as well as her awards and publications on LinkedIn. A serious Spartan, she holds a BS in agriculture and natural resource communication and MS’ degrees in community resource development as well as business administration from Michigan State University.
In March of 2018 Mary published her first book, Transcendent Partnership: Aligning Agendas for Collective Impact, based on her consulting background. The book reached #1 in the US and Canada on Amazon in Nonprofit Organizations & Charities as well as Philanthropy & Charity through the Difference Press. In this book she shares some of her experiences as a community developer with particular focus on working within the city of Flint, Michigan. Combining her professional expertise around implementation of more sustainable living and business strategies, she applies supply chain management theory to work through common systems challenges citizen stakeholders run into when solving large scale issues. For more information, please see www.transcendentpartnership.com. Currently, she is authoring her second book taking a look at what it means to be a female small business owner within the myriad challenges of gender, justice and environmental change against broader community backdrops.