A Holistic Consulting Practice.

Rooted Evolution guides social and creative sector organizations and leaders through growth and change. Laura Stein founded the practice in 2023 and serves as the CEO, and lead consultant. With each new project, Laura weaves together her skills as a nonprofit founder and Executive Director, administrative geek, creative facilitator, anti-racist organizer, and dancer. Depending on the size and scope of the project, Laura brings on other trusted consultants and sub-contractors to create a specialized team for each client’s needs.

Laura Stein,
CEO & Rooted Evolutionary.

Laura’s journey through leading an organization from start-up through growth and eventual leadership succession inspired her to create Rooted Evolution.

Bio

  • Laura Stein (she/her) is the founder and principal consultant at Rooted Evolution. She is an organizational leadership coach and consultant, embodied facilitator, creative producer, community organizer, and dance teacher. She has worked with dozens of organizations, ranging from youth development to arts groups and wellness businesses.

    Laura’s greatest professional legacy is Dancing Grounds (DG), a New Orleans nonprofit dedicated to arts and social justice. As founding Executive Director, she started the organization offering dance classes in her living room and grew DG through a decade of remarkable growth and impact in collaboration with hundreds of local artists, reaching thousands of youth and adult students. She developed a new community dance center, established the largest adult dance program in the city, and co-created the nationally recognized Dance for Social Change youth leadership program. By the end of her tenure, DG had eight full-time employees, 25 regular contracted artists, and a $1 million operating budget.

    From 2003-2011, Laura worked in various roles in educational and arts organizations in New York City including Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educator (R.I.S.E.), New Visions for Public Schools, NYC Department of Education, Social Science Research Council, and Dancewave. Laura received her M.P.A. from New York University (2008) and her B.A. from Wesleyan University (2003).

  • Laura is a white Ashkenazi Jewish cis woman, a fourth-generation Philadelphian who has called New Orleans home since 2012. Her Jewish culture, especially the tenet of “tikkun olam” (repairing the world), has fundamentally shaped her life’s work. She loves dancing, singing, dreaming, mentoring, teaching, learning, and being a mother, twin sister, wife, daughter, granddaughter, and friend.

  • Laura is a passionate anti-racist organizer who applies her core values of integrity, relationships, joy, and justice to everything she does. She is an organizer with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and a Trainer in Training for their Undoing Racism® and Community Organizing workshop. She also organizes with European Dissent New Orleans. She’s currently working to launch a new project, Gentrification Reparations Fund in collaboration with other New Orleans leaders in arts and social justice.