Follow the Money

Report Details

What is Buffalo Cloud Consulting LLC?

On Aug. 5, 2019, Christine Moses registered Buffalo Cloud Consulting LLC, based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, as a limited liability corporation with the Oregon Secretary of State. On June 30, 2021, she amended her annual report to describe her company as doing several services: diversity, equity and inclusion training and consulting; communications, community engagement and  marketing consulting; and nonprofit strategic planning and consulting.

According to her LinkedIn account, Moses was communications director at Lake Oswego School District, based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, from 2017 through 2019, while chief executive officer of Buffalo Cloud Consulting.

According to its website, Buffalo Cloud Consulting is a “diversity, equity, and inclusion training and management consulting firm with deep experience in community engagement, crisis communications, and change management.”

The May 2021 administrator report of The Community Roots School, a Montessori school in Silverton, Oregon, wrote that the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector and Buffalo Cloud Consulting had identified “strategic priorities,” with a draft for yearly goals. Organization officials “continue to work with staff on a monthly basis to examine ABAR practices, work through the Racial Healing Handbook and disrupting [sic] white supremacy in our work.”

The report included an “Educational Equity” policy, stating, “Community Roots School asserts that the system of white supremacy has traumatized and oppressed citizens in this community and limited our ability to deeply connect with each other resulting in isolation, othering, and minoritization that limits our students’ abilities to achieve their full potential. We also acknowledge that ongoing incidents of racism are commonly reported in the Silverton community. In a recent community gathering, citizens in Silverton reported regular experiences of racism. We are agents of change.”

In late June 2021, Oregon writer and parent Melissa Hart wrote a column in the Washington Post, headlined sympathetically, “How equity and inclusion coaches are helping schools become anti-racist.” She chronicled how her daughter, a Black biracial teen, argued with her classmate that the Black Lives Matter movement was relevant to their group project on the impact of the Civil War. “By the end of the week,” she wrote, “their teacher had hired an equity coach to conduct an anti-racist, anti-bias workshop and invited students and their parents to participate via Zoom.” 

The consultant was Moses, chief executive officer of Buffalo Cloud Consulting LLC. 

The column didn’t include the price tag.

What services does Buffalo Cloud Consulting LLC offer?

• “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging,” including “Equity leadership coaching & support,” “Strategic planning,” “Community education & facilitation” and “Execution & implementation”
• Community Engagement, including “Participant identification,” “Leadership engagement & development” and “Campaign deployment & assessment”
• Communications, including “Integrated campaign development & execution,” “Brand development & execution” and “Crisis communications”
• Policy Issues/Management, including “Policy dissemination & feedback,” “Thought-leadership campaign development” and “Lobbying”

What K-12 work has Buffalo Cloud Consulting LLC done?

CONNECTICUT

Connecticut Governor’s Taskforce on STEM Education

Connecticut State Department of Education

OREGON

The Community Roots School

In the May 2021 board report for The Community Roots School, a charter school based in Silverton, Oregon, item No. 4 in the “Administrator’s Report” was titled: “NCMPS & Buffalo Cloud Consulting.”

It said: “Strategic priorities have been identified, and a draft for yearly goals is in the board packet for review by the CRS BOD.” It added: Two staffers “continue to work with staff on a monthly basis to examine ABAR [Anti-Bias Anti-Racism] practices, work through the Racial Healing Handbook, and disrupting white supremacy in our work.”

Lake Oswego School District, Oregon

Linn Benton Lebanon Education Service District, Albany, Oregon

TEXAS

Austin Independent School District

HIGHER EDUCATION

Lane Community College

Sam Houston State University