Klaus works with foundations, corporations, government agencies, and community organizations that want their investments to actually change something. His approach is built on two things most consultants can’t offer at the same time: the strategic thinking to design what should happen, and the community relationships to make it happen. He helps institutions figure out how to engage authentically with the communities they want to serve — and he helps communities work with institutions in ways that produce real, lasting benefit. The work spans health, education, workforce development, energy, and community vitality. The method is the same regardless of sector.
Strategic Investment
Foundations and corporations hire Klaus when they need their community investments to do more than check a box. He helps them figure out where to put their money, how to structure the work, and how to know if it’s making a difference — all grounded in what the community actually needs, not what looks good in an annual report.
What this looks like in practice:
Landscape analysis — figuring out what’s already happening and where the gaps are
Grant portfolio strategy — designing investment approaches that add up to more than the sum of their parts
Strategic planning with real stakeholder input — not the kind where you invite people to a meeting and ignore what they say
Implementation roadmaps with milestones that matter
Community needs assessment and data synthesis
Who hires Klaus for this:
Foundations rethinking how they invest in communities
Corporate foundations that want to move beyond writing checks
Government agencies trying to align funding with what communities actually need
Regional collaboratives building multi-year agendas across education, health, workforce, or community development
Case Story: Health Philanthropy Chronic Disease Prevention Strategy
A major Texas health philanthropy wanted to develop a diabetes prevention strategy that would guide their funding for the coming decade. They didn’t want consultants writing a plan in isolation — they wanted the people closest to the problem to shape it.
Klaus designed a multi-phase process: landscape analysis and stakeholder interviews first, then co-creation workshops with diverse partners, then strategic framework development. People living with chronic disease, community health workers, clinical providers, researchers, and policy advocates all had a seat at the table. Klaus created space for honest conversations about power dynamics and who had historically been left out of health planning. That trust made it possible to build something together rather than rubber-stamp something pre-written.
The process produced a strategy document — but more importantly, it built real relationships among the partners and shared ownership of what came next. Several ideas that emerged went straight into pilot testing with seed funding.
What came out of it:
Comprehensive chronic disease prevention strategy shaped by the people it’s meant to serve
Stronger relationships across health, government, and community sectors
Shared ownership — partners who felt it was their strategy, not something handed to them
A pipeline of interventions ready for pilot testing
A comprehensive and interactive prevention atlas with 50+ indicators at the county level
Case Story: Amarillo Area Foundation — “No Limits, No Excuses”
When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched Partners for Postsecondary Success — a national competition among 25 community foundations — the Amarillo Area Foundation turned to Klaus. Over a two-year learning collaborative, he advised AAF on data analysis, stakeholder engagement, and competitive positioning. Amarillo was selected as one of a handful of communities from the national field.
The initiative, “No Limits, No Excuses,” launched in 2011 with $1.3 million in Gates Foundation funding. The goal: 10,000 more college degrees or credentials in the Texas Panhandle by 2025. Klaus helped design the collaborative framework that brought together 26 regional partners — Amarillo ISD, Amarillo College, West Texas A&M University, Workforce Solutions, and local business leaders — into a unified pipeline from high school through career entry, targeting low-income and first-generation students at risk of falling through the cracks.
What made the Amarillo model different was a simple insight: the main reasons students were dropping out had nothing to do with academics. Poverty, food insecurity, and transportation were driving attrition. The partnership wove social services directly into the educational pathway — a whole-student approach that predated the national conversation about removing barriers to completion. Local businesses signed commitments to support employees pursuing postsecondary plans and aligned job training with what the regional economy actually needed.
The results: Amarillo College’s three-year graduation rate nearly doubled, from 13% to 22%. Graduation rates for Black students increased fivefold, from 4% to 20%. Hispanic students went from 15% to 22%. First-generation students from 12% to 21%. Low-income students using the integrated social services saw a 22% retention increase in just two years. Amarillo College institutionalized these supports through a “Culture of Caring” — on-campus food pantry, emergency grants, legal aid.
The framework didn’t end with the grant. “No Limits, No Excuses” evolved into the foundation’s Panhandle Community Partnership and laid the groundwork for THRIVE Amarillo, a last-dollar scholarship covering tuition and books at Amarillo College for eligible AISD graduates.
What came out of it:
One of a handful of communities selected nationally from 25 foundations competing for Gates funding
$1.3 million Gates Foundation grant
26 regional partners unified across education, workforce, and business
Graduation rates nearly doubled; fivefold increase for Black students
22% retention increase for low-income students
Framework became permanent — Panhandle Community Partnership and THRIVE Amarillo scholarship
Proved that the same coalition-building and strategy approach works in education and workforce development, not only health
CoalitionS THAT WORK
Most coalitions look good on paper and accomplish nothing. Klaus builds the other kind — the ones where partners actually share power, show up consistently, and produce something none of them could have done alone. He designs governance structures, facilitates the hard conversations about who has authority and who doesn’t, and stays involved through implementation — not just the kickoff.
What this looks like in practice:
Coalition design and governance — who decides what, and how
Facilitation of convenings where something actually gets decided
Navigating conflict and building consensus when partners disagree
Trust-building with communities that have good reasons to be skeptical of institutions
Leadership development within coalitions
Who hires Klaus for this:
Foundations building place-based community coalitions
Corporate foundations launching multi-partner initiatives
Government agencies convening cross-sector partnerships
Multi-city or multi-state initiatives that need coordination across geographies
Existing coalitions that have stalled and need restructuring
Case Story: Cities for Better Health — Philadelphia
When Philadelphia joined the Cities for Better Health network, Novo Nordisk asked Klaus to replicate the Houston model, The challenge was adapting what worked in Houston to a completely different city: different politics, different community infrastructure, different demographics. Klaus didn’t import the Houston playbook. He designed an engagement approach for Philadelphia.
Over four years (2018–2022), he built a stakeholder coalition and designed an innovation challenge that generated more than 60 project proposals from Philadelphia-based organizations. He ran a selection process that prioritized what communities said they needed and what organizations could realistically deliver.
What mattered most was getting the process right. Klaus made sure community organizations had the resources to participate, that meetings worked for people with different schedules and constraints, and that power was actually shared — not just talked about.
What came out of it:
Multi-sector coalition reflecting Philadelphia’s stakeholder landscape
60+ innovation challenge proposals from community organizations
Focused project portfolio now being implemented across the city
Governance model with real community decision-making power
Replicable framework for other cities
Case Story: Family Weight Management — Corpus Christi & Nueces County
Childhood obesity in Nueces County needed more than a single program. When state funding became available, Klaus helped the Corpus Christi–Nueces County Public Health Department secure the grant, then reviewed the evidence on available models. He recommended Healthy Weight Partnership as the implementation partner and co-developed a delivery model that connected schools, faith-based organizations, youth programs, and healthcare providers into a single county-wide system.
Each partner did what it was good at: school districts provided access to families, churches offered trusted community spaces, youth organizations extended reach, and healthcare providers connected clinical referrals to community-based support. Klaus structured the collaboration so it worked across Corpus Christi and surrounding communities — not just in a single pilot location.
The initiative ran for multiple years. An approximate $7 million project that reached more than 4,500 children, families, and community members across more than 30 sites. It trained more than 200 leaders as childhood obesity allied health workforce members.
What came out of it:
County-wide family weight management system across 30+ sites
$7 million project reaching 4,500+ children, families, and community members
200+ leaders trained as childhood obesity allied health workforce
Multi-year sustained results in a mid-size Texas community
Proof that cross-sector initiatives can work outside major metropolitan areas
Community Innovation
Klaus designs processes that get the best ideas out of the people closest to the problem. Instead of bringing in outside solutions, he creates structured innovation challenges, co-creation workshops, and participatory design processes that produce real proposals — grounded in evidence and owned by the people who will carry them out.
What this looks like in practice:
Innovation challenge design and management
Co-creation processes with diverse stakeholders
Selection processes that weigh equity, evidence, and feasibility
Coaching and capacity building for emerging projects
Who hires Klaus for this:
Foundations that want their investments shaped by community priorities, not just consultant recommendations
Government agencies looking for solutions they couldn’t design on their own
Organizations ready to move beyond top-down program design
Workforce development and community programs that need community input baked in from the start
Case Story: Novo Nordisk Global Innovation Challenges
Novo Nordisk wanted to find and scale community-based solutions for chronic disease prevention worldwide. Klaus designed and facilitated two innovation challenges that attracted nearly 200 entries from eight countries across four continents.
He coached over 20 selected projects from Brazil, Cambodia, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, Mozambique, Portugal, and the United States — working with each team on intervention design, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability. He built a learning community across the teams and facilitated cross-cultural knowledge exchange. Projects ranged from diabetes prevention in urban Ghana to integrated care in rural Brazil — all adapted to local conditions.
What came out of it:
200+ applications from eight countries
20+ projects coached through design and sustainability planning
Partnerships between Novo Nordisk and community organizations across four continents
Methodology later adopted for programs with UNICEF and the EAT Foundation
Case Story: Cities for Better Health — Houston Innovation Challenge
After researchers from the UT School of Public Health and University College London completed a vulnerability study — 125 Houston household interviews identifying the social and cultural factors driving diabetes risk — Klaus designed the process that turned findings into action. He didn’t hand the data to outside experts. He structured an innovation challenge that put the design process in the hands of the communities the research described.
Eleven roundtables with stakeholders from about 60 organizations — faith groups, government agencies, health insurers, medical providers, employers, and nonprofits — led to five Action Work Groups. Each group developed proposals tackling a different piece of the problem: physical activity, nutrition, clinical care quality, faith-based prevention. The result was a portfolio of initiatives grounded in both science and lived experience.
What came out of it:
Community-generated intervention portfolio addressing multiple dimensions of the problem
Five Action Work Groups spanning faith, government, healthcare, business, and nonprofit sectors
Initiatives that outlived the original funding cycle
Model replicated in Philadelphia and informing cities globally
Place-Based Initiatives
Some problems concentrate in specific places: where access, income, food systems, and institutional trust are all weak at the same time. Klaus designs place-based strategies that address these conditions together rather than one at a time, working across healthcare, government, faith communities, and community organizations to build infrastructure that reaches people traditional systems miss.
What this looks like in practice:
Community needs assessment and landscape analysis
Evidence review and identification of what actually works
Multi-stakeholder strategic planning
Intervention portfolio design
Implementation roadmaps with clear metrics
Who hires Klaus for this:
Foundations investing in long-term outcomes in specific communities
Public health departments developing chronic disease or prevention plans
Government agencies aligning prevention funding with equity goals
Health systems addressing population health in their service areas
Regional collaboratives working on diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, or related conditions
Case Story: Cities for Better Health — Houston (2014–Present)
When Houston became the third city globally to join Cities Changing Diabetes (now Cities for Better Health) in 2014, Klaus was brought in to lead it. Over the next decade, he built the initiative from a research project into a sustained, multi-sector coalition that became a model for the 50+ city global network.
The first phase was research — investigators from UT School of Public Health and University College London mapped the social and cultural factors driving diabetes risk across Houston. Klaus then designed the coalition and governance architecture that turned those findings into sustained action. It was the first broad stakeholder coalition model in the global network. That governance framework — built on shared decision-making and real community voice — has since been adopted by cities across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Over the decade, Klaus engaged more than 600 stakeholders across healthcare, government, nonprofits, business, and academia. The resulting intervention portfolio addressed food access, healthcare navigation, built environment, and clinical care quality. The World Economic Forum recognized the initiative as an innovative approach to urban health partnerships.
One of the most distinctive pieces: Klaus pioneered the engagement of faith communities as partners in chronic disease prevention. Houston became the first city in the global network to work with houses of faith to reach minority and immigrant populations. That work has grown into a multi-faith collaborative spanning 40+ houses of worship — Christian, Hindu, and Muslim congregations — with health surveys reaching over 700 congregants and a leadership cohort building the capacity of nine faith communities as prevention settings.
What came out of it:
Decade-long initiative with sustained coalition and ongoing impact
600+ stakeholders engaged across multiple sectors
Coalition governance model adopted by 50+ cities globally
Community-driven intervention portfolio across food access, healthcare navigation, built environment, and clinical care
First global implementation of faith-based health access model
Multi-faith network spanning 40+ houses of worship
World Economic Forum recognition
Model replicated in Philadelphia (2018–2022) and informing cities across five continents
Research & Learning
Klaus produces work that practitioners can actually use — not academic reports that sit on a shelf. He translates research findings into frameworks, tools, and recommendations that community organizations, city planners, and public health staff can pick up and run with.
What this looks like in practice:
Program evaluation design and planning
Data collection and analysis — qualitative and quantitative
Cross-site synthesis when learning needs to come from multiple initiatives
Translation of research into recommendations people can act on
Who hires Klaus for this:
Foundations that want to understand what their investments accomplished
Government agencies documenting what works for replication elsewhere
Multi-site initiatives needing synthesis across locations
Academic-community partnerships
Case Story: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Healthy Cities Research Hub
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded a Healthy Cities Research Hub at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston to pull learning from three major Cities Changing Diabetes initiatives: Mexico City, Houston, and Vancouver. Klaus was the primary consultant, designing the knowledge translation strategy.
He synthesized quantitative health outcomes, stakeholder interviews, program documentation, and community feedback into practical frameworks other cities could adapt. The work identified critical success factors for urban health initiatives, documented stakeholder engagement strategies that worked, and produced tools for community needs assessment. Klaus wrote for practitioners, not academics — making findings usable for people who run community organizations, plan city services, and manage public health programs.
What came out of it:
Cross-city analysis of three major North American initiatives
Practical frameworks for cities developing urban health interventions
Tools for community needs assessment and stakeholder engagement
Knowledge products written for practitioners, not just researchers
Crisis Response
When something urgent happens and trust is the difference between success and failure, Klaus can move fast. He activates existing relationships, convenes trusted community organizations, and designs outreach that makes sense to the people it’s trying to reach.
What this looks like in practice:
Rapid stakeholder convening and coordination
Community outreach strategy in crisis situations
Activation of trusted messenger networks
Culturally responsive communication
Multi-sector resource mobilization
Who hires Klaus for this:
Public health departments facing emergencies that require community trust
Foundations and government agencies responding to urgent needs
Organizations needing rapid scale-up of services in underserved communities
Case Story: Houston COVID-19 Vaccine Outreach
When vaccines became available but uptake lagged in Houston’s underserved communities, the Houston Health Department brought Klaus in to lead a large-scale outreach program funded by the CDC Foundation.
Klaus convened trusted community organizations, faith leaders, and healthcare providers to design messaging and outreach strategies that would actually work. He built on existing relationships from the Cities for Better Health work, activating a network of Spanish-speaking Community Health Workers with credibility in the neighborhoods most affected by COVID-19.
The program went to people rather than waiting for them to show up — mobile clinics, church partnerships, communication in the right languages and through the right voices. What made it work was Klaus’s willingness to take community concerns about vaccine safety, data privacy, and government intentions seriously — particularly in immigrant communities where fears of surveillance and exploitation were well-founded. He built trust through honest conversation rather than persuasion campaigns.
What came out of it:
Large-scale vaccine outreach program launched within weeks
Trusted messenger network activated across Houston’s diverse communities
Culturally responsive materials in multiple languages
Mobile vaccination events in high-need neighborhoods
CDC-funded program serving thousands of Houston residents
Proof that trust networks built over years can be activated for urgent needs
Industry Engagement: Earned Trust, Shared Impact
Most industry partnerships fail for one of two reasons: the company designs a program without the community’s input, or the community and state and local government agencies don’t believe the company’s intentions are genuine. Both reactions are often well-founded. Klaus works at the intersection — helping industry partners build partnerships that communities and state and local government agencies actually trust, and helping those same communities and state and local government agencies engage with industry in ways that produce real, sustained benefit. When trust is authentic, the business case follows: faster implementation timelines, higher participation rates, deeper community insights, and partnerships that outlast their initial funding. He brings a rare combination: deep understanding of how corporations operate, and authentic relationships — with immigrant communities, faith institutions serving minority populations, and underserved rural and urban residents — that no RFP process can manufacture.
What Klaus Offers
Partnership strategy development and governance design
Stakeholder mapping and engagement planning
Trust-building with communities and state and local government agencies that have well-founded reasons for caution about industry involvement
Community data collection and insights that inform corporate and foundation strategy
Coalition architecture that bridges corporate objectives with community health equity
Public-private partnership design spanning industry, government, and community
Program evaluation and impact measurement
Government engagement and navigation for domestic and international partnerships
Ideal For
Pharmaceutical and diagnostics companies seeking authentic community and government partnerships
Corporations and corporate foundations looking to ground their community investments in real data and relationships
Companies entering new markets where trust with state and local government and communities is essential
Organizations designing programs around social determinants of health
Global health initiatives requiring multi-country coordination
Case Story: Novo Nordisk — Building a Partnership Over 15 Years and Four Continents
Klaus’s relationship with Novo Nordisk illustrates how industry-community trust is earned over time — not through a single project, but through a sustained commitment to showing up, delivering results, and letting each success open the door to the next.
The relationship began at the Texas Health Institute, where Klaus built a public-private partnership that brought Novo Nordisk together with the Texas Office of the State Demographer, the Office of the State Epidemiologist, Roche Diagnostics, and Methodist Healthcare Ministries. That collaboration produced the first state-level Diabetes Action Plan concept in the United States — a framework subsequently adopted and adapted by 26 states. It demonstrated that industry, government, and community organizations could sit at the same table and produce something none of them could have built alone.
When Novo Nordisk launched Cities Changing Diabetes in Houston in 2014, they turned to Klaus to lead it — a direct result of the trust built during the Texas Health Institute partnership. Over the next decade, he built the coalition governance model, the community co-creation processes, and the faith-based health access model described elsewhere on this page. That work became the template for a 50+ city global network.
The relationship continued to expand. Novo Nordisk engaged Klaus to design and facilitate global innovation challenges, and his stakeholder engagement methodology was adopted for additional programs with the EAT Foundation and UNICEF. Klaus also designed Bite of HOPE Culinary Institute, a workforce development program for minority youth that has operated continuously since 2019 with Novo Nordisk funding — demonstrating how industry-community partnerships can extend beyond health programming into economic opportunity. Throughout, Klaus provided community intelligence — data from health surveys, insights from faith leaders and community health workers, real-time feedback on what was and wasn’t working — that consistently informed Novo Nordisk’s approach at both the local and global level.
Most recently, Novo Nordisk Indonesia engaged Klaus to advise on the launch of Cities Changing Diabetes Jakarta, facilitating the partnership between the company and the Jakarta Provincial Government. This work demonstrates how trust built over 15 years in one context opens doors in another — and how the skills of bridging industry, government, and community translate across markets and cultures.
Key Outcomes
15+ year partnership arc spanning Texas Health Institute through Houston, Philadelphia, global programs, and Jakarta
First state-level Diabetes Action Plan in the US, adopted by 26 states — built through a public-private partnership with Novo Nordisk, Roche Diagnostics, state government, and Methodist Healthcare Ministries
Coalition governance model adopted by 50+ cities in the global Cities for Better Health network
Stakeholder engagement methodology adopted for Novo Nordisk-supported programs with EAT Foundation and UNICEF
Community intelligence from health surveys and faith-based partnerships consistently informing corporate strategy
International expansion from US partnership to Southeast Asian government engagement
Demonstrated model for how industry-community trust compounds over time