• Home
  • Personal
    • Personal Empowerment
    • Empowerment Workshop
    • Returning to My Mother's House
    • Rhythm of Compassion
    • The Open Road
    • Solace and Sanctuary
  • Professional
    • Professional Empowerment
    • Certification Program
      • Empowerment Life Coach
      • Empowerment Workshop Trainer
      • Empowerment Design and Facilitation
      • Practice of Empowerment in Organizations
      • Practice of Empowerment in Communities
      • Practice of Empowerment and Climate Change
    • Practice of Empowerment
    • Changing the Game
  • Organizational
    • Organizational Empowerment
  • Community
    • Community Empowerment
    • Low Carbon Diet
      • Cool Community Campaign
      • Cool Corporate Citizen
      • Cool Community Corps
      • Low Carbon Diet Coaching Program
      • Household CO2 Calculator
    • Green Living
      • Sustainable Lifestyle Campaign
      • Sustainable Lifestyle FAQs
      • Citizen Sustainability Assessment
    • Resilient Community
    • Livable Neighborhood
    • Water Stewardship
    • Children's Sustainable Lifestyle Program
    • Behavior Change Research
  • Societal
    • Societal Empowerment
    • Transformative Social Change
    • The Cool Block
    • IMAGINE Program
    • Peace on Earth
    • Reinventing the Planet
  • Books
    • Books
    • Audio Programs The Way of the Spritual Warrior
  • About
    • About Empowerment Institute
    • Global Action Plan
    • About David Gershon
    • About Gail Straub
    • Contact
  • 0

About Empowerment Institute

GS DG hands485

Empowerment Institute, founded in 1981 by David Gershon and Gail Straub, is the world's preeminent consulting and training organization specializing in the practice of empowerment. Its empowerment methodology has been applied over the past three decades to achieve measurable and sustainable behavior change at the individual, organizational and community level. A major academic research study described this methodology as “unsurpassed in changing behavior.”

Empowerment Institute’s clients include large corporations, cities, government agencies, nonprofits, and a wide array of societal institutions and social entrepreneurs interested in issues of behavior change, empowerment and large system transformation. Its clients have included American Express, Deloitte, New York City, Philadelphia, the White House, and the United Nations.

Through its professional development training programs, Empowerment Institute has trained over 3,000 empowerment facilitators worldwide who have undergone rigorous instruction that includes both didactic and experiential training. In turn these facilitators have trained hundreds of thousands of people in the empowerment methodology. Through this deep network of empowerment practitioners, Empowerment Institute is able to manage projects of any scale throughout the world.

Empowerment Institute has also designed and implemented a number of large-scale transformative social change initiatives around the issues of sustainability, peace building and women’s empowerment involving the participation of millions of people in over eighty countries.

Empowerment Institute through its nonprofit research arm, Global Action Plan, engages in applied research and development initiatives around the issues of behavior change, community empowerment and sustainable development. As part of that inquiry it participates in a global research network of NGOs, academic institutions, and social entrepreneurs.

twitter button

Corporate and Non-Profit Clients


Dozens of corporations and non-profits have been trained or formed strategic partnerships to implement Empowerment Institute’s methodology. Some of the larger or more well know clients include:

  • American Express
  • Coca-Cola
  • Dove
  • Deloitte
  • Nike
  • Omega Institute
  • Sterling Publishing
  • Unilever
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Whole Foods Markets
  • Women for Women International
  • Josie Maran Cosmetics

Read More

Public Sector and Utility Clients


    • Arlington County, VA
    • Bend City Water Department, OR
    • Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Agency, TN
    • Chattanooga Area Regional Transit Authority, TN
    • City of Chattanooga Department of Public Works, TN
    • City of Columbus Health Department, OH
    • City of Harrisburg, PA
    • City of Issaquah Resource Conservation Office, WA
    • City of Kansas City Department of Environmental Management, MO
    • City of Los Angeles,CA
    • City of Madison Recycling Office, WI
    • City of Minneapolis, MN
    • City of Mountain View, CA
    • City of Palo Alto, CA
    • City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, OR
    • City of Portland Department of Transportation, OR
    • City of Portland Water Bureau, OR
    • City of Portland Energy Office, OR
    • City of Portland Office of Sustainable Development, OR
    • City of San Francisco, CA
    • White House Office of Sustainable Development

Read More

Foundation Support


Empowerment Institute’s non-profit research arm, Global Action Plan, has received the following foundation support for its research and development initiatives around behavior change, community empowerment and sustainable development.

    • Bullitt Foundation
    • Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation
    • Kettering Foundation
    • MacArthur Foundation
    • Merck Family Fund
    • Pew Charitable Trusts
    • Rockefeller Family Services
    • Sloan Foundation
    • Surdna Foundation
    • A Better World Fund
    • Adobe Systems
    • Ciba-Geigy Foundation
    • Compton Foundation
    • Cray Foundation

    Read More

Join Our Mailing List


Join the Global Empowerment Movement! Get periodic updates on our events, free webinars and training programs.

Click here to join

HTML Form Builder

Photos of David and Gail are by Dion Ogust.

copyright © 2015 Empowerment Institute Scroll to Top