About Communitas Consulting

Clients hire Communitas Consulting to help move a project ahead and give it traction and sustainability. Communitas works with public, private, educational and nonprofit organizations.

Saphira M. Baker is the principal consultant at Communitas Consulting. Ms. Baker has over twenty years of experience in strategic planning, managing and coordinating urban and rural government and nonprofit human service departments and programs, analytical research, and leading large-scale community improvement projects. She is skilled in facilitating meetings, developing effective collaborations across sectors, managing complex organizations at a senior level, and launching sustainable initiatives that make a positive difference in residents’ lives. Her expertise includes public and nonprofit management, health and human services, urban planning, prevention of homelessness, workforce development and education, youth development, and improving and coordinating public and non-profit agencies and systems. Her clients include non-profit and public agencies, as well as state, local and urban governments, universities, and community foundations.

Saphira M. Baker has a Masters of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an A.B. from Brown University. Before founding Communitas Consulting, she served as the Deputy Chief Administrator for Human Services for the City of Richmond, Virginia, from 2005-2008. From 1998 – 2005, she served as the first Director of the Charlottesville/Albemarle Commission on Children and Families in Charlottesville, Virginia. Between 1996 and 1998, Ms. Baker was a consultant for Jobs for the Future and the 21st Century League and was the first Director of the Office of Workforce Development for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1990 – 1996 (see resume for more detail). Ms. Baker is a board member of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence in Charlottesville, Virginia and a Lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia.

Communitas Consulting engages a network of highly skilled researchers and policy analysts and, when additional assistance is needed, brings the right match of expertise and ability to complete each project.


Click for a copy of Saphira M. Baker’s resume

“As a newly emerging nonprofit organization, Communitas Consulting’s strategic planning skills were invaluable to us. The strategic planning process was transformational for our Board, and has given our team an ambitious and clearly defined path to follow – from fundraising to board development guidance -- to support us along the way. Through her keen analysis, attentiveness to customer needs, her understanding of the community, both public and nonprofit sectors, her efficient and inviting facilitation approach, Saphira Baker is a top rate consultant. I would recommend her highly.”

Judy Smith, Executive Director, Jefferson Area CHIP, Charlottesville, Virginia