Peter Donaldson

Peter Donaldson is a strategic storyteller with over 35 years of experience in performance art, public speaking, curriculum design, and community facilitation. Peter founded Sustainability Ambassadors in 2012 and serves as the Director of Learning, coaching student leaders, teacher leaders, and community leaders on how to advance collective impact strategies, design problem-based learning curriculum, and support sustainable systems thinking at the intersection between classroom learning and community impact. 

With a BFA in Painting and a Teaching Certificate from the University of Washington, Peter started out as a middle school art teacher tinkering with new models for teaching as storytelling. He frequently found himself impersonating famous artists. From 1986-1996 Peter was the Artistic Director for Youth Theater Northwest, authoring 17 plays for young actors and audiences. In 1994 he was recognized as National Youth Theater Director of the Year by the American Alliance for Theater and Education. Peter wrote and acted in two of his own one-man, touring shows, The Life and Times of Leonardo da Vinci and Salmonpeople, with follow up seminars at high schools and colleges across the northwest, the nation, and Canada. In 2009, he was appointed Distinguished Scholar to the Dan Evans Chair for the Liberal Arts at The Evergreen State College where he facilitated seminars on sustainable systems thinking. In 2010, Peter was recognized by E3 Washington as the Outstanding Environmental Educator of the Year. 

Peter’s focus on strategic storytelling is informed by his passion for coaching youth at the cusp of adulthood. To rest his mind at night, Peter writes a lot of poetry. Poetry and his early passion for painting are both method and metaphor for leading a learning organization.