About Us
About Place+Perspective Learning
We design learning that starts with place — because geography shapes everything.
Place+Perspective Learning was built on a simple truth:
Where people live, work, organize, and connect shapes how they learn, lead, collaborate, and grow.
Most trainings treat learning as something that happens in a vacuum — disconnected from geography, community realities, culture, and everyday context. We don’t. We design learning experiences that are rooted in the places people belong to, the histories they’re navigating, and the futures they’re trying to build.
We don’t just teach concepts —
we build the internal capacity of organizations to lead their own expansion, engagement, and growth from the inside out.
Our approach blends:
Spatial insight — using geography, local context, and community dynamics as strategy
Equity — not as a topic, but as a design principle and implementation lens
Empathy — for staff, communities, and the realities of care-centered work
Applied learning — actionable, role-based, and grounded in real responsibilities
We don’t believe in frameworks that float above the work.
We believe in learning that meets people where they are — literally and organizationally.
Why Place Matters in Learning
Place shows us things data alone can’t:
Who is included. Who is missing. What histories shape trust. Where engagement breaks down. Why certain strategies land in one neighborhood but fall flat in another.
When learning ignores place, three things happen:
Communities get misunderstood or overlooked
Staff feel unprepared to lead beyond what they already know
Growth becomes reactive instead of intentional
Our work does the opposite. We help teams use place as a decision-making tool — for training, strategy, community relationships, program expansion, storytelling, and internal alignment.
How We Work
Every partnership begins by understanding three things:
1. Where you’re working — the neighborhoods, communities, regions, and geographies shaping your reach and responsibility.
2. Who is leading the work — their roles, capacities, identities, histories, and lived experiences.
3. What you’re trying to build — whether that’s expansion, engagement, restructuring, partnership development, or internal readiness.
From there, we design learning spaces that:
Strengthen internal leadership
Support teams in transition or growth
Make community context part of strategy
Bridge data, narrative, and lived reality
Align staff across sites, programs, or regions
Turn engagement into collaboration, not outreach
Equip teams to lead change sustainably
We’re not here to stay forever — we’re here to help your people take the lead.
What We Do
Our work spans four core areas, each grounded in place, equity, and real-world application:
✅ Custom Learning Labs & Capacity Building
Immersive, scenario-based learning experiences that equip staff to lead engagement, expansion, and internal change — not just attend trainings.
✅ Spatial Insight & Place-Based Strategy
We help teams use geography, community knowledge, and spatial patterns to make smarter decisions, build partnerships, and identify gaps or opportunities.
✅ Workforce Development & Learning Strategy
We design internal learning systems, role-readiness plans, and growth structures that support staff as programs, funding, and responsibilities evolve.
✅ Engagement, Equity & Storytelling Integration
We help teams use narrative, lived experience, and community voice as strategy — not branding.
Place is the throughline in all of it.
Why We Exist
Because too many organizations are trying to grow without the internal infrastructure to support it.
Because staff are being asked to take on new responsibilities without the training, guidance, or context they deserve.
Because place-based equity work fails when it’s only centered in outreach — not in how teams are trained, supported, and informed.
Because community voice shouldn’t be something organizations react to — it should shape strategy, design, and leadership.
Because the people who live closest to the work should be equipped to lead it — with perspective, confidence, and care.
Our Belief
Learning should not remove people from their context — it should deepen their understanding of it.
When staff are grounded in place, equity, and empathy, they don’t just complete initiatives — they lead movements, sustain relationships, and grow their organization with intention.
That’s what Place+Perspective Learning is here to make possible.
About our Founder
Lakeshia Wright, AICP, MCIP-I, is the founder of Place+Perspective Learning and a lifelong urban planner who believes that learning, planning, and place are inseparable. With more than 14 years of experience in city planning, qualitative research, and community-centered strategy, she has helped governments, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations design work that reflects the people and places they serve.
Her career has always bridged two worlds: urban planning and education. Whether she’s developing spatial strategy, designing workforce learning systems, or facilitating engagements across neighborhoods and regions, Lakeshia approaches every project with the lens of a planner and the heart of an educator. She is deeply committed to helping teams grow their internal capacity—using place, equity, empathy, and context as tools for decision-making.
What distinguishes her work is her ability to integrate human-centered design, community voice, and spatial insight into strategic planning, policy development, and organizational learning. She doesn’t treat education as separate from practice—she uses it to shift how teams lead, collaborate, and expand their impact.
Through Place+Perspective Learning, she continues the work she’s always done:
teaching people to see place differently, use it more intentionally, and lead with context, care, and clarity.
Our Values
Equity Is a Practice, Not a Concept
We don’t treat equity as a module, a workshop, or a statement. It informs how learning is designed, how voices are included, how decisions are made, and how organizations grow. Our work focuses on building internal capacity to implement equity—not just talk about it.
Why it matters:
Real equity work can’t live in reports, job titles, or outreach alone. It has to show up in training, decision-making, partnerships, leadership development, and everyday implementation. When equity becomes embedded, teams lead with accountability, clarity, and care.
Place Matters
We believe that where people live, work, and connect shapes how they learn, lead, and engage. Geography, history, culture, and lived experience are not backdrops — they are active forces in organizational growth, equity work, and community impact. We design learning and strategy that honor place as context, teacher, and guide.
Why it matters:
When place is ignored, communities get misunderstood, expansion efforts lose direction, and staff feel disconnected from the realities they’re serving. Centering place leads to smarter strategy, deeper relationships, and more grounded leadership.
Learning Should Build Leadership, Not Dependency
We create learning experiences that prepare people to lead—not rely on external experts. Through applied practice, narrative tools, spatial insight, and internal readiness planning, we help staff build confidence to grow with their work and carry the mission forward.
Why it matters:
Organizations don’t struggle because they lack vision—they struggle when staff aren’t supported to step into what’s next. When learning is tailored, applied, and grounded in real roles and communities, teams become stronger from within.
