8 Bridges Workshop
8 Bridges Workshop
8 Bridges Workshop

About

8 Bridges works as a core team of Minnesota-based consultants. We frequently recruit regional and national partners to bring specific expertise and lived experiences to our projects. We bring practical, on-the-job expertise in philanthropy, public media, and arts and culture to help you and your organization create a path toward a better future.
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Field research, program development and implementation, and evaluation across grantmaking to support public media and journalism, arts and culture, organizational capacity building; and other fields of interest.
Strategic and organizational planning, program development and evaluation, desk and field research, and editorial project development.
Strategy, organizational planning, program development and evaluation, and supporting the exploration and evaluation of new initiatives and opportunities.

A bridge represents many things: it can be a link, a scaffolding, a platform, a connection, or an extension. 8 Bridges Workshop uses our practical and on-the-job expertise in philanthropy, public media, and arts and culture to help you and your organization go from where you are now to where you’d like to go. 

Our collaborative approach creates a dynamic workshop environment in which clients and our team work together to develop strategy and to research, plan, implement, and evaluate projects. We excel in future-facing projects such as strategic plans, organizational assessments, contextual research, and program development scenarios.

Bridging can take on many forms and structures. 8 Bridges Workshop can help you become the organization that you aspire to be and create a path toward a better future.

Our Team.

Our core team of consultants brings diverse lived experiences to our work.  We have been in your shoes and have worked in philanthropy, public media, the arts, and the private sector. We value close working relationships and often partner with organizations long-term or on successive assignments. We will join you as thought partners, learners, collaborators, and multi-disciplinarians, helping you refine your vision for the future while fitting within your organizational culture, needs, and budget.

Sarah Lutman
Founder and Managing Director

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Enrique Olivarez
Principal

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Greta Rudolph
Principal

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Jessica Fiala
Research Associate
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Patty Johnson
Associate
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Recent Collaborators.

Arielle Julia Brown, Black Spatial Relics

Sharon Rodning Bash, Bash Consulting

Jocelyn Hale, Principal, MillerHale Associates

Elana Schwartzman, Founder, The Fontlove Studio

Colin Hamilton, Principal, Hamilton & Associates

Christine Allison, Data and Development Strategies

Colleen Scheck, Curious Pivot Consulting

Justin Dunn, Increase Branding & Design

Contacts

Questions?
Get in touch.

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Email
[email protected]

Address
1161 Selby Avenue #1
Saint Paul, MN 55104

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Sarah Lutman is Founder and Managing Director at 8 Bridges Workshop. Over the past ten years she has built 8 Bridges to become a leading consulting firm nationally, producing a body of influential projects, including strategic plans, program evaluations, and field-building reports. Recent clients include the Wyncote Foundation, the Knight Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Independence Public Media Foundation, CultureSource, Twin Cities PBS (“TPT”), Sahan Journal, American Public Media, and Agora Journalism Center.

Prior to founding 8 Bridges Workshop, Lutman served as President and Managing Director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, where accomplishments included expansion of free media offerings on digital platforms, and innovative approaches to audience development. She was previously senior vice president for content and media at American Public Media where she was responsible for all broadcast, digital, and live event programming, including Minnesota Public Radio’s regional network of 42 news, classical music, and rock and roll radio stations and APM’s national news and cultural program portfolio.

Lutman worked for 16 years in philanthropy, first as executive director of the Fleishhacker Foundation in San Francisco and then as senior program officer at The Bush Foundation in St. Paul. Lutman’s responsibilities included program development, assessment, and evaluation in pre-collegiate education, public broadcasting, civic engagement, the environment, and the arts and culture. She is a widely published journalist and author.

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Enrique Olivarez, Principal, joined 8 Bridges Workshop in early 2020. In his 30-year career in the nonprofit sector, Enrique has led resource and project development efforts at the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, MacPhail Center for Music, Minnesota Public Radio, and Coffee House Press. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Development at CLUES (Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio), a Latino social service organization focused on serving the rural and urban Latino community in Minnesota.

Olivarez worked as program manager for the Ford Foundation’s Working Capital Fund, which sought to increase the organizational capacity of 12, mid-sized culturally specific arts organizations across the nation through business planning, grants, loans, and organizational consulting services. Enrique’s consulting expertise includes journalism, public media, arts and culture, organizational assessment, and institutional fundraising.

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Greta Rudolph, Principal, has worked with 8 Bridges Workshop since 2017, contributing to written reports, evaluation projects, and strategic plans. Rudolph has been a part of 8 Bridges’ recent digital media work and has led recent survey and analysis efforts, gathering both qualitative and quantitative information to support client projects.

Rudolph holds a J.D. from the University of Minnesota and practiced at the global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright for ten years, where she was three times named a Rising Star by Super Lawyers (2018, 2019, and 2022) and counseled clients on diversity, equity, inclusion, and ESG matters. She is also a practicing artist, co-leading a small dance performance group, and has been a board member for the Midwest Morris Ale and COMPAS.

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Jessica Fiala, Research Associate, has been with 8 Bridges Workshop since 2012, working on projects ranging from research and analysis to writing and editing, workshop development, program evaluation, and project management. Jessica coordinated the artist grant program at Forecast Public Art from 2014-2017, served as the Research Coordinator for the 2015 International Award for Public Art, and has continued as a nominator and researcher for the award. She is a company member of Ragamala Dance where she performs, teaches, and leads community engagement activities. Jessica holds an interdisciplinary master’s degree in Museum Studies from the University of Minnesota and is a former

docent at the Walker Art Center. Her writing as an independent scholar has been published in the anthology The Ruined Archive (2014) and the journals Diálogos com a arte (2016, 2019), the Journal of Somaesthetics (2020), and Public Art Journal (2022).

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Patty Johnson, Associate, has a broad scope of experience in the nonprofit arts and public media sectors, with expertise in managing board governance and relations, event planning, special projects, and prospect research and data analytics for institutional and individual giving programs. She holds a degree in international relations from the University of Minnesota.