SISU Consulting

Nicole Huser

Community development practitioner: fund development, participatory planning, restorative justice

SISU Consulting is the independent practice of Nicole "Nikki" Huser, supporting cities, frontline communities, nonprofits, and grassroots coalitions at the intersection of institutions and the people they serve.

Sisu (Finnish): courage and resolve in the face of adversity, in service of collective possibility.

A full room of community members at an Urban River Learning Network session

Urban River Learning Network session, Phoenix

The Practice

I work where systems meet communities: translating between them, building trust, and moving resources toward community-defined priorities. My practice spans fund development and grant strategy, community engagement and participatory planning, restorative justice and circle keeping, and climate resilience as a justice framework.

Over 15 years across nonprofit, philanthropic, municipal, and Tribal sectors, I have raised more than $2 million for community-led work and managed a $2.5 million federal HUD grant portfolio. I am a 2024 Next City Vanguard Fellow, a board member of AZ Land, and currently completing an Executive Certificate in Leadership in Social Impact at Harvard Kennedy School.

Selected Work

Climate Resilience & City Systems

City of Phoenix, with Bloomberg Associates

Embedded in the City Manager's Office supporting a citywide climate resilience and community development portfolio. Contributed to the Rio Salado District Policy Plan, a framework guiding investment around the river's habitat restoration area through 2050, and supported the Shade PHX Plan. Helped document the Sombra public art series.

Neighborhood Revitalization

HUD Choice Neighborhoods · five cities nationwide

Contributed to participatory planning across five cities, including the first Choice Neighborhoods award to a Tribal Nation.

Community-Led Planning & Repair

Jacksonville, FL

Contributed to the Durkeeville Revitalization Study, a community-led blueprint for housing, cultural preservation, and reinvestment without displacement in one of Jacksonville's most historic Black neighborhoods, completed May 2025. Advising the descendant-led Mt. Herman Cemetery restorative justice pilot.

Community Benefits & Environmental Justice

City of Akron, OH

Contributed to the city's first developer agreement and the Environmental Justice Vision Plan.

River Restoration & Stewardship

Salt River, Phoenix

Strategic consultant to Protectors of the Salt River, a grassroots movement for ecological restoration and Indigenous-led stewardship. Secured funding for the Urban River Learning Network, including a recent design talk.

Restorative Justice

Chicago to present day

Certified circle keeper with years of practice in public housing, schools, and youth-serving settings. Helped secure launch funding for Chicago's Restorative Justice Hub Network.

Featured Pilot

Moving as an Ecosystem: Pilot Learnings from the Rio Salado

Rio Salado, Phoenix · July 2026

Five community-led groups spent a pilot year stewarding the Rio Salado as one ecosystem: Protectors of the Salt River, AZ (LAND), Cultural Signage, Design Empowerment PHX, and Foodways. Volunteers filled more than 600 stewardship shifts and removed roughly 740 bags of trash and invasive plants across three acres, while the cohort advanced O'otham language work for public signage at the pace the Community sets, native seed saving, and art along the river. I supported the cohort throughout the year with technical assistance, coaching, and fund development. Read the pilot learnings report.

From the Field

Families gather beneath an artist-designed shade structure in a Phoenix park — Shade as cultural infrastructure: an artist-designed Sombra structure in community use.

Residents work over neighborhood maps at a community design workshop — Residents shape the plan directly, working over maps at a community design workshop.

Tree planting along the Salt River — Tree planting and clean-up along the Salt River with Protectors of the Salt River.

A grid of community members holding handwritten Protect the Rio Salado signs — Volunteers share why they protect the Rio Salado, in their own words and languages.

A full room of community members seated for a conversation in a local art space — A full room for community voices on the river's future, gathered in a local art space.

Photographing a wall of community posters and printed art — Documenting community art and story in the field, where culture carries the work.

Featured Story

The Barrio That Bought Back Its School

Flowers & Bullets · Tucson, AZ · July 2026

A feature story and photographs from a July 2026 site visit to Flowers & Bullets, a barrio-rooted collective that purchased its neighborhood's shuttered elementary school and turned the campus into a working farm, early-childhood programming, and a national model for community land ownership. Read the story.

I take on a limited number of engagements. If the work fits, let's talk.

Get in Touch Read the Journal

info@sisu-consulting.net · (312) 536-0574 · LinkedIn