Advancing visionary
leadership. 

ōen (おうえん), pronounced “oh-en”, means to root for, support, and cheer on.

〰️

ōen (おうえん), pronounced “oh-en”, means to root for, support, and cheer on. 〰️

We are a WOC-led full-service social impact studio specializing in strategy development, capacity strengthening, and impact storytelling for equity- and justice-driven organizations.

OUR SERVICES

  • Translating community-based insights and your organization’s vision into a sustainable and impactful strategy. Core services include:

    • Participatory visioning

    • Strategic planning

    • Board development

  • Developing leadership, management, and strategy skills and capacity within your organization and/or your grantees’ teams. Core services include:

    • Custom workshops and facilitations

    • Professional development coaching

    • Fractional leadership

  • Working with your internal stakeholders, community members, beneficiaries, and funders to tell the story of your important impact. Core services include:

    • Stakeholder research

    • Strategy reviews

    • Impact reports

We work with dynamic leaders and collaborative teams within equity- and justice-driven organizations to plan, execute, and refine thoughtful and impactful strategies.

From grassroots movement builders to equitable funders, our clients lead work in issue areas including:

Environmental & racial justice

Youth empowerment & leadership

Immigrant rights advocacy

Outdoor equity & education

Narrative & culture change

Re-entry programs

Community building & engagement

OUR CLIENTS

  • Strategy development for transitioning governance, operations, personnel structure, and program strategy from a fiscal sponsorship structure to an independent 501(c)(3)

  • Board of Directors strengths assessment, governance manual development, and participatory process design

  • Non-profit Theory of Change and logic model development workshops and retreats

  • Customized program development and business entity planning workshops

  • Customized non-profit strategy workshops to meet grantees’ needs and interests

  • Tailored 1:1 and cohort-based leadership coaching programming

  • Hiring process design and execution

Project
Examples

  • Executive leadership teams (Founder, President, CEO, COO, Chief of Staff, etc) for non-profit and for-profit organizations

  • Boards of Directors, Advisory Councils, and Youth Advisory Boards

  • Non-profit Executive Directors and their diverse and cross-functional teams of staff members and volunteers

  • Program-specific teams through strategy retreats or extended engagements

  • Initiative-specific committee (i.e. strategic planning committee comprised of leadership, board members, and staff)

  • Funders who want to provide capacity strengthening support to grantees through workshops and coaching

Our
Collaborators

Our Core Values

Equity and justice: All of our work is grounded in equity and justice, guided by our north star to advance access to opportunities by addressing systemic barriers and root causes of oppression.

Integrity: We believe in being thorough, principled, and always turning to our values when guiding our decision-making and thought processes. We bring the very best of ourselves to our work with our clients, recognizing the privilege and opportunity to co-create a better future with you.

Community: We value the diversity of perspectives and lived experiences that inform thoughtful strategies. We empower co-creation and participatory decision-making processes to ensure recommendations are informed by ground truth, power is shared across the organization, and buy-in for changes and new opportunities. 

Creativity: As a creative impact studio, we’re excited about the opportunities to bring in multidisciplinary perspectives and play-infused elements of creation and ideation to our work. We pride ourselves on using generative and collaborative methods across learning styles to generate new ways of thinking and shaping our innovative recommendations.

Partnership: A clear intentional, and co-created process that will work well for our clients and their needs is absolutely essential to achieve meaningful and durable outcomes. We prioritize listening to your valued stakeholders and understanding your specific context, and then designing processes that are clearly communicated and agreed upon with you prior to feedback-driven implementation.

Welcome
to the ōen studios community

ABOUT THE FOUNDER

Jennifer Fei (she/her) is the Founder and Principal of ōen studios. She is a strategist, facilitator, leadership coach, and advisor based in Brooklyn, NY.

With over a decade of experience and through past senior leadership and advisory roles, Jen has launched grassroots non-profit organizations, managed cross-functional teams and budgets, led successful multi-million dollar fundraising campaigns, and implemented global partnership programs. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from UC Berkeley and her Master’s in International Policy from Stanford University. With extensive professional experience in philanthropic, corporate, research, and non-profit organizations, she is passionate about leveraging her skills and expertise for the benefit of impactful leaders and teams and in service of a more just and equitable world.

In addition to leading ōen studios, Jen also serves on the Board of Directors of the Mockingbird Incubator, a non-profit accelerator for grassroots non-profit organizations and activists. She is a grantmaking panelist for the Brooklyn Arts Council and a two-time fellow of the Women’s Impact Alliance leadership development program. She also volunteers with the Asian American Justice and Innovation Lab.

Jen is a 500-hour Yoga Alliance certified advanced yoga and mindfulness teacher with specializations in trauma-informed and restorative yoga. She incorporates her training and experience holding intentional space in her classes into her facilitation, coaching, and leadership style. 

Selected Testimonials

  • "I cannot recommend ōen studios enough to leaders looking for an empathetic partner to support resource accumulation, collaborative ideation, and strategic planning as your projects or major transitions move from vision to actualization."

    Rachael Meyers (she/her), Founding Program Director, Youth on Root

  • "I highly recommend Jen’s capacity-strengthening workshops for organizations that offer leadership development and skill-building opportunities, and her facilitations for teams looking to build a thoughtful strategy together.”

    Laura Hernandez (they/them/elle), Program Coordinator, Outdoor Educators Institute, Justice Outside

  • "Jen led an informative and dynamic session that really helped our program participants learn and apply complex and important tools and frameworks on their social sector leadership journeys. We appreciated the co-creative process that Jen took with us to design the curriculum to meet our capacity building needs."

    Capacity strengthening client

  • "I am deeply grateful for Jen's empathic partnership in defining our future strategy. She listened carefully to my vision as Founder and the input of stakeholders, and reflected these back with analysis and clarity. The resulting strategy is already providing unity, clarity, and rich partner engagement opportunities."

    Jose Antonio Vargas (he/him), Founder and President, Define American

  • "Jen's facilitation and presentation style was beyond exceptional. The presentation had normal colors, standard fonts, easy to read and understand. Thank you for your time and patience. Your passion and genuine happiness makes a difference in the presentation and our Zoom setting."

    Program strategy workshop attendee

  • "I am incredibly grateful for Jen's partnership and leadership as we worked to define a new, scalable strategy informed by a wide range of stakeholders and more than a decade of organizational experience. Jen expertly guided the process, moving seamlessly between listening deeply, analyzing data, and presenting concepts. I am absolutely certain that our forward-looking strategy is clearer, more informed, and likelier to support successful impact at scale as a direct result of Jen's work."

    Jenn Bender (she/her), Chief of Staff, Define American

  • "Jen was an amazing facilitator for our retreat. I appreciated how we were able to interact even outside of the times for group discussion and that helped me feel like I could personally relate to you and learn from your expertise. I very much appreciated having you as our facilitator."

    Strategy development retreat participant

  • "I appreciate Jen sharing her facilitation skills and how we as a team can move forward toward our own personal and professional journeys. It was also valuable to break down our goals in short-, mid- and long-term formats to allow more open discussion on how we can achieve them."

    Eliza Jane Palao (they/she/he | siya), Program Coordinator, Outdoor Educators Institute, Justice Outside

  • "Jen had great energy and pacing, and her workshop featured a lot of valuable content. I appreciated the camera on/off options and opportunities to connect in breakouts. While I learned a lot, it felt very low-pressure and low-stress which was awesome."

    Capacity strengthening workshop attendee

  • "Whether it was facilitating a high-stakes international partnership meeting, diving into the weeds of a challenging problem or creating clarity out of ambiguity from multiple stakeholders, Jen was simply amazing! Her leadership, creativity, and dedication drove the growth of a key new pillar of work for our organization, while simultaneously establishing best practices in partnership management."

    Duncan Lawrence (he/him), Founding Executive Director, Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University

Let’s connect

If you have questions about or ideas for collaboration opportunities, we’d love to hear from you.

Book an introductory call with us here.