About Susan Comfort
Basic backstory / bio
Movement classes & training
Movement classes & training
Susan Comfort (she/her) hails from Baltimore, the land of Orioles, Ravens, and Blue Jays, but she is a Carolina Tar Heel at heart. Susan is a bilingual facilitator, an out bisexual since 1993, and also, a bipedal bicyclist.
She is now an adjunct professor at American University teaching "Strategies for Stress Management.".
Susan's three decades in the nonprofit trenches were invested in raising millions, working on political campaigns, serving on boards, mentoring advocates and developing leaders. She now consults with nonprofit and schools who want to shift their workplace culture.
Susan is also cultivating Casa Comfort in Takoma Park (MD), where multiple generations experience nature and physical activity. There's rock climbing, tree climbing, a beehive, vermicomposter, and a rain garden, all in one corner property. There used to be a movement sidewalk but the city powerwashed it.
Susan co-founded and co-directs a 501(c)3, NonprofitWellness.org, which focuses on TEAM-care (which is even more important than SELF-care, for educators and world-changers). Check out the nonprofit site, then hire us to coach your team.
Movement classes & training
Movement classes & training
Movement classes & training
Susan is a Registered Yoga Teacher who learned hatha yoga to stay sane while working as a parent and fundraiser. She also dabbles in Circus & Acro, and puts it all together for tweens and families at Casa Comfort classes and sometime at Willow Street Yoga (WSY).
Susan trained at WSY in 2003-04 (400+ hour certification); the studio is now the longest-operating in the DC area. She also earned Ring One Certification with Circus Yoga, led Playworks DC recess games, and parented two kids into college.
Susan has taught yoga to kids and families at Willow Street Yoga, Latin American Montessori Bilingual, and at various DC public schools with Breathing Space Yoga.
Sanskrit treat: here is Susan's daughter, E, chanting the Gayatri mantra, long ago, with Storm the kitten.
Jackson 5 treat: Susan did a 40-dropbacks fundraiser for her 40th birthday (many years ago) with 40 kids at LAMB public school.
Hometown, Organizing & Education Bona Fides
Hometown, Organizing & Education Bona Fides
Hometown, Organizing & Education Bona Fides
Susan is a proud, out Baltimore native who spent many summers serving crabs at Bo Brooks (even while vegetarian). She earned Phi Beta Kappa (B.A., Communications), was a leader with the Student Environmental Action Coalition, and served as a basketball statistician under the leadership of Coach Dean Smith at UNC.
Some of Susan's fave professional highlights include: being a queer female leader in the 90s environmental movement, leading 16 Campus Green Vote, Environmental Justice and Environmental Journalism training academies for college students, co-founding an early AmeriCorps program, overseeing EWG.org's massive email list growth, developing corporate partnerships at BoardSource, and bringing play to kids via Playworks and KaBOOM!
Susan completed Georgetown's certificate in Organizational Consulting and Change Leadership and is a graduate of many other training programs including: Green Corps, Midwest Academy, Rockwood Institute, Dismantling Racism, Landmark Education, Circus Yoga Ring One, and Willow Street Yoga's 400-hr Teacher Training. Susan is a (divorced) co-parent of two humans with two moms, which is a privilege as well as the hardest school/self-improvement program of all.
Finding Susan (& her words)
Hometown, Organizing & Education Bona Fides
Hometown, Organizing & Education Bona Fides
Here are more Medium stories, plus LinkedIn & YouTube channels.
Susan's on Instagram
You can always reach her the ol-fashioned way,
202-246-5336 (talk or text)
or email susan@nonprofitcomfort.com
For more words from Susan:
An archived Washington Post chat on "Benefits of Recess"
A TechSoup blog based on her Zoom Fatigue reco's
2018 podcast w/ Jakub Górnicki: Burnout Among Activists
2021 Ty & Susan on Northstar Sleep School: Teacher Wellness
2021 Nonprofit Radio: Team-Care
2021 NTC Training session
Why "Team-Care"?
They always ask: is your name really Comfort?
Yes. I'm the kid of a swimming coach and a physical therapist. I've had this name for 52 years. I've spent a half a century learning workout skills from my dad and nutrition and posture skills from my mom. I learned yoga on my own (I still have terrible posture, though. Sorry, Mom).
Now, as facilitators, we love getting people outside of their "Comfort zones," which is where learning happens. Tyecia Powell (above) and I appreciate and often provoke uncomfortable conversations or physical movements that challenge people and challenge conventions.
Everyone must take their physical and mental health into their own hands (self-care).
It's even better when a group takes care of each other (team-care).
Our tools help build your team's culture.
Comfort Zone
"Take Five" Testimonials
"a reminder to breathe during these challenging times"
"Susan's presentation was super fun and a timely reminder to breathe during these challenging times. She delivered up the right mix of interaction, laughs, a-ha moments and brain science to make it a highly enjoyable brown bag lunch training."
--Suzanne Ehlers, President & CEO, PAI
"highlighted the type of breaks that help us most recharge"
"A fun and informative session, that provided not only science backed research, but connected that to the needs for breaks to prevent burnout, and highlighted the type of breaks that help us most recharge." --PA, Development & Finance Manager, national justice organization
"now, we keep juggling scarves in our break room"
“We all need breaks, especially ones that involve moving around and having a little fun. Susan got us started on the concept with Playworks’ recess program. And now, thanks to her talk, we keep juggling scarves in our break room to encourage employees to take a moment for play. What a fun, engaging session Susan provided! Can’t wait to have her back again.”
-- Rachel Gaur, Sr. Manager, Facilities and Events, Promontory Interfinancial Network
"play is a powerful tool to combat burnout"
"As a resident physician, burnout is a huge problem and very difficult to combat given our crazy hours. Susan gave great insight and had a wonderfully interactive workshop. I think if everyone took a few minutes out of their day to relax and play, we would all be happier. It is a powerful tool to combat resident burnout."
-- Dr. Ferrin Ruiz, coordinator of Med/Peds Residents Conference at UCLA
"...but not a lot of humans being"
"I really enjoyed your talk “the new smoke break” at the CPA conference last week. Great information, great class interaction, and you are an excellent speaker. More people need to hear your message. A great quote I heard from a Buddhist monk “I see a lot of humans coming and going, but not a lot of humans being”. The ceaseless activity of modern life breeds disease of mind and body. Everyone needs to take time to smell the roses…before the roses wither up and die, or before they do. Keep up the great work and keep spreading the message. We need it now more than ever.
p.s. I have mastered the thumb/index finger exercise by the way!" --B.M. (Johnstown, PA)
BOOK THE TALK
Susan can deliver Take Five as a 30- or 45-minute brown bag, 60-minute keynote, or 2-hour workshop. Longer versions have more activities and small group work. Appropriate for groups large or small. Contact info@nonprofitcomfort.com
Red+Blue=Purple
Talking about mental and physical health promotes team culture.
Wellness is a multivitamin for empathy, productivity, and trust.
Takoma Local Activism
Kids Political Action
"Unanticipated civics lesson"
"Unanticipated civics lesson"
In 2022, while Susan's hometown of Baltimore was announcing a painted streets-and-sidewalks initiative, our little Takoma Park neighborhood covid project -- a movement sidewalk and native plant mural -- got declared graffiti and power-washed.
However, it revealed the need for a City process for future community art projects. And it energized young activists, who held a mayoral forum on issues about young people.
So far, young people in Takoma Park have not been prioritized by Mayor Searcy and a mostly-new Takoma Park City Council. We're gathering comments and ideas for young people to move this forward:
"Unanticipated civics lesson"
"Unanticipated civics lesson"
"Unanticipated civics lesson"
In summer 2021, I commissioned local teens to paint native plants on 50 feet of Lincoln Ave retaining wall. Its rainbow approach affirmed and reflected the artists, my own, and the neighborhood's queer-ness.
Why did my mural get power-washed when other people's retaining wall murals get to stay? It's professional art, after all, I paid for it.
Here's my Medium piece about the graffiti rebellion, and another about the native plant mural. This editorial explains the controversy which happened after a dcist article and TV coverage of the sidewalk and mural last days of the fight. One of the TV reporters brilliantly got me to say that it was an "unanticipated civics lesson" (take the survey, left).