We're so lucky to have an amazing group of nonprofits and community-focused businesses which use our two spaces. Some have a full office, some just pop in when they need a space to feel productive, connected, and welcomed. And we have new and interesting folks dropping by every day to make use of our conference rooms and day pass coworking!

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Below is a list of most of our Commonplacers. (Note: We update this monthly.)

Anavery Fine Foods

Anavery Fine Foods raises heritage breed animals in a healthy setting to provide your family with the best tasting meat, poultry and eggs. We practice ethical animal husbandry and regenerative agriculture so you can feel good about what you buy. Anavery is brought to you by The Weinrich Farm in Traverse City, Michigan.

Attain

Attain is a leading management, technology, and strategy consulting firm comprised of innovative problem solvers. We are more than just consultants—we’re trusted advisors and partners dedicated to helping you execute your vision and mission with purpose to achieve remarkable results.

Building Bridges w/ Music

Building Bridges with Music is passionate about bringing live music and a powerful and engaging message promoting respect and understanding to people of all ages. Our dynamic musicians are very entertaining and represent a variety of cultures, generations and genders. We share very compelling personal stories about how bullying, disrespect and prejudice have affected our lives.

Commongrounds

Commongrounds is a real estate cooperative in Traverse City, with a goal to develop real estate that meets community needs and increases quality of life in the region. Our pilot project is 414 E. Eighth Street, a 4-story mixed-use building. More than a building project, Commongrounds will be a backbone support for space and activities integrating wellness, arts, family, and food to help people and organizations be healthy, connected, creative, and inclusive.

Crosshatch

Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology envisions communities that are grounded in place: where people connect through stories, music, art, shared work, and food, and where the economy and culture are rooted in restoration of the earth and its people. Crosshatch builds strong communities through the intersections of art, farming, ecology and economy. (Formerly Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design; ISLAND)

Frost Family Partnership

The Frost Family Partnership (FFP) owns and manages 28 rental units in and around the area. They define their business as community-focused real estate development and property management and are committed to running it as such. Rather than renting out each unit at the highest price the market will bear, less than a quarter of our units are just short of higher-income wage earners. These help pay for the entire portfolio, which helps keep rents down on the majority of our properties.

Life Integrated Coaching

Life Integrated Coaching uses the psychometric tools of Emergenetics to put a scientific lens on how your genetic blueprint and life experiences influence your natural way of thinking and behaving. They offer consultations, workplace coaching, workshops, and ongoing support for those interested in discovering more about their own unique approaches to life and learning.

Lean Focus

When you look at the Lean Focus team, you won’t find career consultants. You’ll find former leaders of Fortune-500 companies. Veteran talent solutions professionals who know what true Lean talent looks like. Senior-level Lean practitioners who’ve led successful business transformations in just about every industry. You’ll find everything it takes to build a high-performance culture that delivers sustained, profitable growth.

Goodwill- Street Outreach Team

Street Outreach meets people experiencing unsheltered homelessness where they are, and offers resources that can help people end their homelessness. Along with our partners in the Coalition to End Homelessness, we’re working toward a community where everyone has a safe and secure home. Together, we can make homelessness a rare, brief, and one-time experience.

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Habitat for Humanity

The Habitat program is a hand-up to a permanent housing solution for people who want to help themselves. Habitat homeowners have a real sense of ownership for both their homes and their new neighborhoods. Our ReStore directly supports our work. In addition to reducing waste going into landfills, donations and purchases help build homes for working families in our community.

MCM Staffing

MCM Staffing is an award-winning recruiting firm that specializes in qualifying candidates for job placement by screening for more than skills, building candidate rapport and establishing a rich referral network within the community. We provide value to our customers by developing answers to their staffing needs; to our associates with accessibility and prompt payment; to our candidates with direct feedback to guide them in their career options; and to our internal staff members through a rewarding experience.

Mission North, LLC

Mission North began in 2003 offering planning and economic development services to municipalities and downtown organizations. In late 2017, we set out to establish Mission North as a premier consultant for downtown organizations, cities, and those who develop in them. With a focus on placemaking, mobility expertise, and sustainable economics, Mission North is driven by a passion for places of quality and value.

Northern Initiatives

Northern Initiatives provides loans to small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs in Michigan that might not qualify for a small business loan from traditional banks for various reasons. Northern Initiatives offers access to capital at reasonable rates to those who would never have the chance or who would have entered business undercapitalized.

Nobo Market

NoBo Mrkt is a collaborative cafe and beverage bar offering specialty coffee, local beer and wine, creative handcrafted cocktails and free-spirited beverages, and carefully curated local food items with a focus on providing an exemplary guest experience. We are located on the main floor of Commongrounds, a real estate cooperative on 8th Street in Traverse City, Michigan.

NWMI Arts & Culture Network

The Northwest Michigan Arts & Culture Network is an arts and cultural services organization dedicated to connecting, promoting and supporting the individuals, organizations and creative projects that create and further arts and culture in Northern Lower Michigan. The Network serves as a convener, connector and advocate. Our goal is to help arts and culture thrive!

Parallel Solutions

Parallel Solutions is rooted in Traverse City, Michigan and primarily serves people and places in the Great Lakes region. We help guide strategic planning and action; provide professional and organizational development coaching, advice, and training; help clients plan for and manage changes in leadership, funding, programs, partnerships, and systems; and support collaborative efforts within teams and networks, including inter-jurisdictional and public-private partnerships

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship imagines a world of peace where all God’s creation can thrive. In local and global communities, we will use every nonviolent means to disrupt and transform the culture of domination that normalizes racism, ecocide, militarization, and war. We build peace through the abolition of structural violence and by living into alternatives to violence with creativity, intelligence, imagination, and love.

Render & Rise

Render & Rise, the food-focused offshoot of Phase 4 Media, was founded in 2021 by award-winning filmmaker, Sarah Hesterman. Sarah has been producing content for brands, global creative agencies, production companies, foundations and non-profits for over 15 years. Our style of storytelling is rooted in documentary film, always in search of authenticity and ways to allow folks to tell their own story in their own words. We pair that with beautiful images, elevated production value and a story arc that drives a call to action, to create original, quality, content that will engage, inform and inspire.

Riley’s Candles

We're not in the candle business. We're in the dog saving business. We're on a mission to save as many dogs' lives as possible. Riley is our founder, Chief Beagle Officer, and currently a 13-year-old rescue beagle. When Riley was 3, he was paralyzed and his newly married parents and couldn’t afford the surgery cost to save his life. In desperation, the charges were spread over every credit card they had available. Many animals are not so fortunate and must be put down. Riley decided he had to do whatever he could to change this, so in 2017 he founded Riley’s Candles! Per Riley’s instructions a portion of all proceeds raised by the sale of his candles and 100% of all donations will go directly to save pets in this situation.

Ryan Scott

For over 18 years I’ve helped brands build awareness and grow audiences by ideating, creating videos and executing creative strategies. My job purpose is to be a big picture creative thinker, video producer, strong writer, and presenter who adds value to teams by transforming data and insights into ideas that drive business results. I believe in a healthy work/life balance, spending my free time outdoors hiking and taking photos. I’m fueled by a passion for connecting brands with people to help them solve problems and live better lives.

Square Roots

Our mission: To responsibly bring our locally grown food to people in cities around the world, all year round. Greens should be good for all of us. Farmers, food lovers, and the planet itself. So instead of shipping fresh food halfway across the world (like most food is today), we bring farms closer to people. We’re guided by technology. We grow with love. And we want to make delicious, locally grown food a possibility for people everywhere.

Statecraft

Statecraft works with communities and/or organizations who have a plan but need consistent backbone support to make it happen. By “backbone” support, we mean working with you in an ongoing capacity as part of your team, assisting your board, organization, or collaborative with project management, meeting facilitation, budgeting, partnership and fund development, grant writing, and communication activities. This work requires a little bit of everything, never gets old, and we absolutely delight in it.

Taste The Local Difference

Taste the Local Difference® is Michigan’s local food consulting, media and marketing agency. Our work is diverse, but has one common goal – to sell more Michigan grown and produced food across the state. We are a woman-owned and woman-led business, specializing in communication strategy for purpose-driven food brands across the state of Michigan. We are passionate about education, building relationships and empowering entrepreneurs.

The Alluvion

The Alluvion is a 150-seat music venue and event space located on the second floor of The Common Grounds Cooperative building at the edge of The Boardman River near downtown Traverse City. This intimate, creative space is designed with optimal acoustics and world-class equipment. It is dedicated to producing high-quality, highly-accessible performances, community events, classes, workshops, and so much more. The Alluvion is co-owned by three partners: Commongrounds Cooperative, Jeff Haas, and Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology.

The Boardman Review

The Boardman Review is Northern Michiagn’s quarterly creative culture and outdoor lifestyle journal, and is co-produced by the Loud Brothers. Nick is a filmmaker and photographer who has spent several years in Los Angeles producing, shooting, and editing multiple short and feature documentaries. Chris has several years experience as a writer and producer for TV and digital series.

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Our mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Guided by science and equity, we find paths to solve climate change and biodiversity loss. We’re determined to make a major difference by 2030.

The Ticker

The Ticker is Traverse City’s go-to digital source for local news and insider information. A multimedia news and events service, we deliver a free daily news email to more than 40,000 subscribers, and maintain a website that features up-to-the-minute news, events, community information, homes for sale, classifieds, movie times, and much more. The Ticker was launched in 2009 and is owned by Eyes Only Media, which also produces the Traverse City Business News, the Northern Express and other publications.

Tusen Takk Foundation

Named for an expression of thankfulness, the Tusen Takk Foundation nourishes artists by giving them a place to work, engagement opportunities to enrich the culture of Northwest Michigan, and a platform to share their work internationally. To share the beauty of Tusen Takk with artists, in the form of a time and a place to create, and to connect them with audiences worldwide, sharing their efforts to make the intangible tangible.

Venture North

Venture North has helped more than 1,500 small businesses in northwest Michigan through affordable loans and small business consulting. The measure of Venture North is reflected by the success of our clients and the willingness of agencies and philanthropy to support our work. Our history is their story. Let’s work together to create even more great stories in northwest Michigan!

Who's At Commonplace?