We bring creative community engagement, planning, placemaking, design and facilitation to towns and organizations across North America.

We’re here to inspire.

People and places everywhere are finding creative ways to make their communities happier, healthier, safer, stronger and more connected. We help people come together, see what’s possible, and imagine what could be.

We’re here to innovate.

Great things happen when we make planning, engagement and community development fun, interactive, unusual, and inspiring. We bring a range of creative (and traditional) tools to involve people in shaping their communities.

We’re here to help.

We’re not the experts on your place — you are. We won’t tell you what to do — we’ll help you discover it. We bring people together, help them talk and design solutions, and build the capacity to work together and take action.

Our Story

We founded Community Workshop because we’re passionate about great communities and creative solutions.

CW is a Vermont-based consulting firm that brings creative engagement, planning, placemaking, and facilitation to communities and organizations across North America. We help people come together, envision bright futures, and create the change they want to see. We aim to leave people and communities with the skills, relationships and enthusiasm to think big and make great things happen.

Partners Rebecca Sanborn Stone and David Hohenschau first started working together at the Orton Family Foundation. We developed a shared love for working with people and places, from rural towns to neighborhood groups, tribal communities to youth and elders. We bring a diverse skillset and more than 40 years of combined experience in cutting-edge community planning, capacity building, placemaking and creative engagement.

Who We Are

David helps communities of all kinds bring people together, create a vision, plan for action, and build capacity for getting things done.

 David brings creativity and craftsmanship to this work. His experience in strategic planning, community engagement, sustainable community design, and land use planning is bolstered by mad skills in GIS mapping, communications, and graphic design.

He has played key roles in several innovative planning efforts, including Community Studio’s participatory design workshops,  Nishnawbe Aski Development Fund's First Nations Comprehensive Community Planning program, and the Orton Family Foundation's Heart & Soul program. He has won awards for his work from the Canadian Institute of Planners, the Planning Institute of BC, and both the American and Canadian Societies of Landscape Architecture.

David is also an associate with EcoPlan International, Community Workshop’s Canadian affiliate, and is a lecturer at the University of Vermont. He holds a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture and a B.Sc. in Environmental Design.

Rebecca brings a creative spirit and unique ideas to community engagement, communications, placemaking, and community development.

She has a diverse background, with experience in teaching, writing, biology and environmental science, conservation, research, network building, and more. She draws on all of these skills to help communities and organizations better communicate, engage audiences, design great events, and build capacity. Her work focuses on helping people find creative solutions to local needs, in areas like livability and walkability, local democracy and participation, public spaces and community revitalization, resilience and local economic development.

Rebecca is also a dynamic writer, speaker and trainer. She develops toolkits and resources and offers talks and events ranging from national keynotes to local workshops.

Rebecca's recent projects include the award-winning CreateVT: Action Plan for Vermont’s Creative Sector; It’s Happening in Herkimer County; and Vermont Better Connections planning projects. She has consulted with numerous Vermont and national organizations including Vermont FEED, the Center for a New American Dream, EPA’s Local Foods, Local Places, and AARP Vermont.

Rebecca holds a Master’s Degree from the Yale University School of the Environment and a B.A. from Williams College in English and Biology. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Norwich University Center for Global Resilience & Security.