Background
Facilitation/Mediation/Strategic Planning
Maro Zagoras
Maro Zagoras started her career in Colorado as a lobbyist at the state legislature in Colorado and fought the Tabor Amendment.
The National Civic League then recruited her to coordinate and later direct The Colorado Trust's first statewide initiative, the $10 million Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative. The Colorado Healthy Communities Initiative initiated cross sectoral problemsolving approaches to health issues through collaborative planning.
Maro then became Senior Advisor to the National Civic League and provided training and facilitation in communities statewide in strategic planning, civic engagement and organizational development.
In 1995, she started her own business serving statewide foundations, community organizations and governmental entities in strategic planning, facilitation, civic engagement and organizational development. She served as a lead facilitator in 20+ multi year statewide initiatives including mental health, tobacco, palliative care, home visitation, early childhood, violence prevention, healthy communities, Healthy People 2000 and 2010, immigrant integration, immigrant mental health, child maltreatment, and hunger.
Maro serves non profits and government agencies as a neutral facilitator, trainer and organizational development specialist. In addition, she brings over 30,000 hours of professional experience as a registered federal mediator.
Maro is also a thought leader on systemsbuilding. Maro currently provides healthcare systemsbuilding trainings and provides facilitation of systemsbuilding efforts within communities' medical, non medical model and full system efforts.
Past and present clients are Maro's best form of advertising. See what they're saying about Maro and Desired Outcomes Inc.
"Not only is Maro Zagoras an exceptional facilitator but she is also extremely knowledgeable about Health Care Reform and what steps organizations need to be taking now to place themselves in the best position for future success. If your company is not having these conversations yet, Maro will light a fire and take you through Health Care Reform in easy, understandable, bite-sized pieces—and she does it all by first understanding your organization and its needs." Kristin Doherty, Community Liaison, Highlands Behavioral Health System
“That fabulous woman who did the planning commission training in Aspen is Maro K. Zagoras, Desired Outcomes Inc. She is a great facilitator. My thought is that the City Council and Planning Board and any other board that has a heavy load and needs help in doing the public’s work more effectively would benefit from her giving us all a training. She has depth, clarity, warmth, experience-a great human being with very sharp skills.” Malcom Cowles, Planning Commissioner, City of Boulder
After winning the national Outstanding Foundation award Jean Merrick, Vice President of The Colorado Trust wrote “Maro, you have made so many contributions to The Trust’s work over the past 10 years, you deserve to share in this honor.”
“The overwhelmingly positive feedback about Maro that we have received from community organizations and the positive results we have seen first-hand from her work make me confident in her skills and abilities to handle a wide variety of situations. Maro is one of The Colorado Trust’s most stellar consultants.” Susan Downs-Karkos, former Senior Program Officer, The Colorado Trust
“Maro is the best facilitator I have ever worked with. You will know that when you work with her.” Ben Ganyon, Long Range Planning, City of Aspen