Strategic consulting, leadership development, and transformational support for schools, organizations, and teams who believe that loving children on purpose is not a soft skill; it is the whole assignment.
Where insight becomes impact.
Teachers. Principals. Youth workers. Nonprofit leaders. Community builders. Everyone wants children, especially African American children and children of color, to thrive, but too many of the adults surrounding them are exhausted, isolated, and operating without the clarity, cultural grounding, or support they need to sustain the work.
Here is what we know: you cannot pour from an empty cup. When the adults are depleted, the children feel it. When the culture is fractured, the children feel it. When love is performed instead of practiced, the children feel that too.
The Village Place helps organizations align people, culture, and strategy so meaningful change becomes sustainable.
More than three decades at the intersection of learning, leadership, and love.
Kara Bickhem May has spent more than three decades in classrooms, school buildings, and leadership spaces fighting for one thing: children who are seen, valued, and given what they actually need to become who they were made to be.
She has served as a classroom teacher, department chair, district-level coordinator, founding principal and executive director — building expertise at every level of the educational ecosystem before bringing all of it to the work of school design and leadership development. She has built cultures from nothing, loved staff to life, and watched children the world had already decided about go on to do things the world swore they’d never do.
A trained vocalist, writer, and lifelong artist, Kara brings a creative arts lens to everything she does — from instructional design to leadership coaching to direct work with young people. She served as the founding principal of a creative arts school on Chicago’s South Side, demonstrating what can be possible when children are given space to make, express, and discover who they are.
She brings all of that — the pedagogical expertise, the leadership experience, the wins, the failures, the art, and the unshakeable belief that every child is treasure — into every partnership she enters.
The Village Place partners with schools, nonprofits, foundations, leadership teams, creative organizations, and community-centered initiatives committed to strengthening the ecosystems surrounding children and people.
Leadership development, professional learning, culture and climate work, and school design with deep attention to the full humanity of every child in the building,
Program strategy, team alignment, facilitation, and youth-centered initiative development for organizations committed to equity, dignity, and the wellbeing of the communities they serve.
Thought partnership, youth engagement strategy, leadership development, and cross-sector collaboration rooted in genuine care for community, not just outcomes, especially organizations investing in creativity and the future of young people.
Keynotes, panels, and workshops that are warm – and then sharp. Kara does not come to make you comfortable. She comes to make you better.
High-level partnership for leaders navigating complex work – with clarity, cultural grounding, and a commitment to keeping children at the center of every decision.
Workshops, retreats, and learning experiences that don't just build skills, they rebuild purpose. After all, the calling didn't leave you; you just got tired.
Coaching and strategic guidance that helps teams lead from their best selves, not their most depleted ones.
Support for organizations building or reimagining learning environments where every child feels seen, valued, and capable of more than anyone has told them.
Kara works directly with young people through creative, arts-informed, and identity-affirming experiences that build confidence, voice, and a sense of possibility. Sometimes the village must show up directly for the young people it fights for.
Story-rich, conviction-driven keynotes and presentations on leadership, creativity, equity, and what it actually means to love children on purpose – before it's too late.
If it shapes a young person’s world – the classroom, the principal’s office, the nonprofit program, the community organization, the corporate partnership – it matters. And the people doing that shaping deserve to be poured into, developed, and supported with the same love and intentionality they are being asked to bring to the children.
That is not idealism. That is strategy. Because when the village is strong, the children feel it. Every. single. day.
Whether you are leading a school, an organization, a team, or a community, The Village Place exists to help you do that work with greater love, clarity, cultural responsiveness, and impact.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
Let’s build what’s possible – together.
