In 1981 David Gershon and Gail Straub founded Empowerment Training Programs to explore the question – how do you empower people to grow and realize their full potential? They wished to shift the focus of personal development from healing the past and fixing problems to focusing on what we want for our lives, our organizations and our communities – and how to achieve it. Enabling people to envision their dreams and bring them to fruition was the heart of the approach which they called empowerment. The term empowerment was new in the vernacular of transformation as was their approach. This innovative approach to transformation soon began attracting attention.

People came to learn for themselves, their organizations, or their communities. They came from North America, Europe, Asia and Russia. They were a diverse group which included Fortune 500 managers, organizational change consultants, business school professors, coaches, educators, health-care professionals, therapists, non-profit and government executives, community development consultants, social and environmental change advocates, leadership trainers and those wishing to develop a career in personal development training.

Over the years what evolved was an extraordinary learning community – a global empowerment laboratory. David and Gail then wrote their best selling book Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It, popularizing their research on empowerment. The writing process brought further refinement to their model and the book’s success attracted yet more people to their trainings. Along the way Gail and David became master practitioners of personal growth facilitation and people also began coming to experience their style.

David and Gail continued to evolve their empowerment work by adapting the model and methodology to other initiatives. Included amongst these was a transformative event created at the height of the cold war, the First Earth Run. In partnership with the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and ABC Television they organized the historic passing of a torch of peace around the world. This simple and profound act of global unity offered at a moment of great fear engaged the participation of 25 million people in 62 countries, the world’s political leadership and through the media an estimated 20% of the population on the planet. It was an extraordinary confirmation of the efficacy of the empowerment tools.

Building on this growing body of knowledge and experience in large system transformation, David applied his empowerment expertise to communities and organizations. His clients included cities, countries and organizations wishing to create behavior change amongst their constituencies. The versatility of the empowerment tools enabled them to address issues ranging from organizational culture change to environmental behavior change to low-income neighborhood revitalization. Longitudinal research studies indicated the adopted behavior changes were sustained over time.

Gail applied the empowerment methodology to developing an advanced training program that integrated spiritual growth with social and ecological responsibility. This training has become a model for engaged spirituality balancing inner development with outer service. Based on this training she wrote the critically acclaimed The Rhythm of Compassion: Caring for Self, Connecting With Society and Circle of Compassion: Meditations for Caring for Self and the World.

And the results from all this research and application…a robust and rigorously tested transformational model was built that stood the test of time. It worked! While they were now recognized as the foremost authorities on empowerment and their work had grown widely, David and Gail realized there was a next level. It was to create an in-depth professional training program for the mastery of empowerment. The Empowerment Institute Certification Program was the result.