In 2005, when our founding board was established, we chose to incorporate simply as "Embrace" because our dream was that one day we might expand beyond Richmond.  For the past 15 years, we have been doing business as "Embrace Richmond" and our impact was largely limited local communities.

Over the past year, our dream of impacting communities beyond Richmond became a reality as organizations far beyond the Metro Richmond region began participating in our Empowered Communities Institute and taking advantage of our executive coaching services.  More than 350 individuals from more than 50 organizations participated in our training events and coaching services over the past year and roughly 20% were outside Richmond.

At our April 2019 Board meeting, the decision was made to "embrace" this expanding network of training and coaching clients by shifting from doing business as "Embrace Richmond" to "Embrace Communities."  

To support this expanding network we have launched a new website and an online training and coaching platform that makes our training materials more accessible to our out of town clients and will provide our coaching clients with a number of tools to strengthen their development efforts. I hope you will join us in celebrating this long anticipated expansion!

It is hard to believe, it has been nearly 15 years since we first began this amazing journey.  I am incredibly thankful to the founding Embrace Board of Directors for their far reaching vision and to our current board for their openness to this expanding impact. I am also grateful for the Bob and Anna Lou Schaberg Foundation for their support of our Empowered Communities Institute as well as capacity building support from The Community Foundation of Greater Richmond that is funding our new online training and coaching platform.  We have also been blessed with a number of individual donors and congregational supporters who have faithfully supported our work for more than a decade.

However, none of this would be possible without our training and coaching clients. Thank you for allowing us to come alongside you in your community strengthening efforts.  

It has been quite a journey so far and I feel certain, this is just the beginning!

If you want to join this movement by hosting a training or engaging your organization in a community strengthening effort, please contact us here.