Connected to Place
Catalyzing Systems Change in Regions, Counties, and Cities
Speaker and Author
Drawing on his thirty years of facilitating and researching social change, Matt Biggar, Ph.D., speaks and writes about place-based systems change that rebuilds connection in people’s lives and revitalizes nature, community, and local economies. Matt offers a positive vision of place-based living for addressing our biggest challenges and shows us how we can get there.
Matt has presented at dozens of national and local gatherings and conferences. Audiences include advocates, planners, policymakers, philanthropists, educators, local business leaders, and others interested in sustainable, just, resilient, and thriving regions, cities, and communities. Matt shares tools and insights that transform change efforts into systems-level impact.
He is the author of Connected to Place: Regenerating Nature, Community, and Local Economies through Systems Change (Cornell University Press, 2025) and several published articles in academic journals and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Facilitator
Matt facilitates workshops for groups working on change at the regional, county, city, and community levels.
Place-based Systems Change Strategy workshops involve advocates, nonprofit leaders and staff, funders, planners, government leaders and staff, elected officials, educators, and other regional and local changemakers. Participants learn about systems change levers and catalysts and how to apply them to new and existing initiatives and projects.
Place-Based Collaboration workshops involve existing collaborative teams and leaders as well as stakeholders from nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and other sectors interested in starting local or regional collaboratives. Participants learn how to build, implement, and adapt these collaboratives for maximum engagement and systems-level impact.
About Matt
Matt Biggar, Ph.D., is the Founder and Principal of Connected to Place. For the past decade, he has worked as a strategy consultant, partnering with place-based collaboratives, local governments, nonprofits, planners, educators, and foundations on place-based systems change.
He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2015, where his research involved behavioral science, sustainability, and collective impact.
Matt has 30 years of professional experience as a strategy consultant, researcher, author, speaker, organizational leader, and educator.
Connected to Place is located on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone. The Ramaytush were the original peoples of Yerba Buena (San Francisco) and one of over 50 Ohlone tribes. The Ohlone and other first peoples across the greater region understood and respected the web of life, living deeply connected to place and maintaining balance with nature for millennia. Today, over 18,500 Ohlone, Miwok, Yokuts, and Patwin peoples live, work, carry on cultural traditions and uphold sacred relations with the land throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.