Ajené Livingston

Strategy · Leadership · Community

I help mission-driven organizations turn relationships into resources and vision into lasting action

I'm Ajené Livingston, a community strategist, nonprofit leader, and theatre artist based in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and working throughout Chester County, Greater Philadelphia, and beyond. I bring people, ideas, and organizations together to move good work forward, and I help turn that shared energy into a clear plan and lasting action.

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Ajené Livingston smiling, arms crossed, in a cream blazer under string lights.

When we work together, we achieve incredible results.

  • $800KProgrammatic grant secured with support from Work Enclave results
  • 1,500+Leadership program alumni kept engaged through the Arts + Business Council
  • 40+Productions with Coatesville Cultural Society, with casts as large as 75
  • 60%Of Work Enclave participants identified as candidates for local jobs with benefits

What I do

Three ways in, one thread through all of them

The work can look like philanthropy, board development, community engagement, or the arts. The common thread is helping people see what is possible, find their role in it, and move forward together.

Grow the support your mission needs

For nonprofits, community foundations, and cultural organizations with a meaningful mission and a resource plan that hasn't caught up. Together we build your case for support, map the relationships you already have, and set up a donor and sponsor calendar your team can keep.

  • Case for support
  • Stakeholder mapping
  • Sponsor strategy
  • Donor engagement
Partnerships and resource development
Ajené on stage as the Preacher in The Gospel at Colonus, arms outstretched beneath a candle chandelier.

The arts in every room

Theatre taught me how to listen, adapt, and bring a group toward a common purpose

For more than 25 years I've worked as an actor, educator, and producer in the United States, Europe, North Africa, and the Caribbean. That practice comes with me into every board retreat, listening session, and partnership meeting. Strategy and creativity have never been separate for me. Both start with the same questions: what is possible, and how do we make it real?

Read my story

How we work together

Good work starts with listening

  1. Listen

    We start with a conversation. I learn your mission, your relationships, your goals, and your constraints.

  2. Find the real question

    Together we look past the loudest symptom and agree on what actually needs to change.

  3. Agree on the work

    A focused scope, clear deliverables, and a timeline your team can carry.

  4. Move together

    I stay close enough to make the plan usable. You leave with decisions, owners, and tools.

Cover of Nonprofit Sustainability: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving

In print

I wrote the chapter on cultivating community rapport for this collection of essays by 31 nonprofit leaders. It introduces my RAPPORT framework for building public trust.

Read about the chapter

In the spotlight

Where people came together and things moved

  • Ajené leading a trust exercise with Work Enclave participants in a training room.

    Chester County OIC

    Work Enclave program

    A five-week paid work program. 60 percent of participants became candidates for local jobs with benefits, and the results helped secure an $800,000 grant.

  • Children gathered on mats for storytelling under shade trees while families watch from lawn chairs at Sundays in the Park.

    Coatesville Parks and Recreation Commission

    People. Programs. Parks.

    A free, year-round calendar of park programs and events, a completed Palmer Park renovation, and a strategic plan framework for the City.

  • Ajené as the Preacher in Coatesville Cultural Society's The Gospel at Colonus, the choir behind him.

    Coatesville Cultural Society

    Community arts education

    More than 40 productions, youth and after-school programs, and hundreds of school assemblies across dozens of schools.

See all eight projects

In their words

Client quote, one to three sentences, about what changed after working with Ajené.

Name, title, organization

There is always a good path forward

Have a vision or a challenge you're ready to work through?

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