Hi, I’m Danielle
I’m a PMEL practitioner, the founder of PMEL4ALL, and the person behind Shepherd. I’ve spent 12+ years helping mission-driven organizations figure out whether their work is actually making a difference - and what to do when it isn’t.
I’m also a dog mom, a sometimes distance runner, a public transit enthusiast, and a Pacific Northwest transplant who is still a little surprised she ended up here (but given my aversion to the sun and love of hiking mountains…not that surprised).
The Origin Story
WHY PMEL4ALL & SHEPHERD EXIST
I kept seeing the same problems. Eventually I decided to do something about them.
After more than a decade working in international development and sustainability in medium and large organizations, on projects funded by the US government, major foundations and a host of European and other government donors, I kept running into the same patterns.
Teams that thought they were aligned— weren’t. MEL frameworks were built to satisfy funders rather than help people make decisions. Projects that launched without clarity on what they were really trying to achieve, then scrambling mid-implementation to demonstrate impact that was, shall we say, tenuous.
The problem wasn’t that people didn’t care. It was that honest conversations about what was actually measurable, about whether the theory of change held up, about what success really looked like, were genuinely hard to have. And there weren’t great tools to help teams face that challenge.
In April 2024, I had the opportunity/privilege to step away from my full-time role as an employee and try to build something. I took that chance and have been a full-time entrepreneur/builder/problem-solver ever since.
I spent the better part of a year figuring out the specific problem I wanted to work on. By January 2025 I had a clear vision. The vision was Shepherd - a platform that could make those hard alignment conversations easier to have before a project launches. The consulting practice grew alongside it as a way to stay close to the real problems organizations are navigating and bring in the experience that makes the platform better.
Why Shepherd?
A NOTE ON THE NAME
Gare in supervisor mode
It’s a family operation. Kelsey named the platform. Gare supervises
Shepherd is named after my dog, Gareth — known to most as ‘Gare’ (like Bear, but with a G). The name was actually my sister Kelsey’s idea, and it stuck immediately. A shepherd guides. It keeps everyone moving in the same direction, it notices when someone has wandered off course. It felt exactly right for a platform designed to do the same thing for project teams.
Gare himself is less interested in project alignment than he is in his ball and sleeping on the bed. His primary professional focus is monitoring the threat posed by mail carriers and delivery drivers. It is a role he takes extremely seriously and he has a 100% success rate. He has, for the record, learned to identify delivery truck logos by sight. We consider this impressive.
For her part, Kelsey is also the force behind all of PMEL4ALL and Shepherd’s social media, videos and podcast editing — couldn’t do it without her.
Professional Philosophy
WHAT I ACTUALLY BELIEVE
Less noise. More clarity.
I believe rigorous doesn’t mean complicated. If a team is genuinely clear on what they’re trying to achieve, they don’t need 30 indicators to prove it — and they don’t need a MEL framework that costs more to maintain than it’s worth.
I’ll be honest: brevity is not my natural state. I tend to think in systems, see the connections between things, and want to account for every variable. Which is useful…until it isn’t. I’ve learned that the awareness of that tendency is half the battle. The other half is having someone in the room who keeps asking ‘but what does this actually mean?’ That is the question I try to bring to every engagement.
The Human Part
A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME
Beyond the work.
I grew up in the upper Midwest and somehow ended up in the Pacific Northwest via Washington DC with my partner John - who is himself a native PNWer, had something to do with that. I love public transit, traveling slowly, and the particular satisfaction of learning a city well enough to navigate without a map. My best travel experiences have been the hometowns of friends or places where I’ve stayed long enough to find a favorite cafe and master the metro system.
As a Type 1 diabetic with a genuinely inconvenient sweet tooth, I have a personal and very literal relationship with data-driven decision-making. When the data says something, I pay attention.
I’m also a sometimes distance runner, which mostly means I sign up for races with confidence and then spend the following weeks renegotiating with myself about what ‘distance’ means.
Outside of work I spend my time hiking with John, working on our perpetually unfinished house renovation, and being supervised by Gare, who is a good boy and knows it.
Want to work together?
If you’re working on a project that needs better MEL — or a team that needs to get aligned before it’s too late — I’d love to talk. Discovery calls are free, 30 minutes and genuinely no pressure.