Allison Handler, Associate

Consulting since 2007, Allison has more than a decade of experience in community development, affordable housing, land-use planning and land conservation.  She has worked with nonprofit organizations and local governments on strategic planning and organizational assessment, and business development and financial feasibility.

From June 2008 to July 2009, Allison was the principal of Heron River Group consulting. Formerly the Executive Director of Portland Community Land Trust in Portland, Oregon, Allison also founded the Land Stewardship Program, a housing land trust program of the North-Missoula Community Development Corporation in Missoula, Montana.  Her work with land trusts of all stripes has been a happy marriage between her Masters of Science in Environmental Studies (University of Montana - thesis on urban redevelopment) and her Bachelors in Philosophy (Williams College). Allison has served on the boards of the National Community Land Trust Network, the Northwest Community Land Trust Coalition, Housing Land Advocates and DemocracyLab.org.

Allison is an avid gardener who believes in growing and putting up her own food (she makes killer pumpkin marmalade), and keeps chickens for eggs and slug control. She loves her bicycle so much that she spent seven days riding down the coast from Astoria, Oregon to Jedediah Smith State Park in northern California in the summer of 2006.  Fascinated by everything volcanic, she plans someday to do a cycling trip in Iceland and check out the volcanoes and geysers there. She is an unapologetic banjo player in a band called Succotash, which plays American roots music – everything from old-time and gospel to rag and stomp tunes.  She has dabbled in water colors and chalk pastels, and swears that she will someday re-learn how to use the four-harness floor loom that’s gathering dust in her basement.