Meet the Founder

Stephanie Bultema, PhD, MAAL

Founder & Principal Consultant.

Loves turning complexity into clarity.

Are you a mission-driven leader? Do you want to make your systems smarter, your partnerships stronger, and your strategies sharper? Dr. Stephanie Bultema can help you to achieve your goals. With a PhD in Public Affairs and over 15 years of experience in public health, evaluation, and collaborative governance, Dr. Bultema specializes in building the kind of strategic learning environments that make real systems change possible.

Dr. Bultema’s career includes working with local and state health departments, nonprofit organizations, health systems, and national foundations. She has seen firsthand how transformative it can be when diverse groups come together around a shared vision and work together to find solutions.

Whether she’s mapping networks, designing strategy, or helping partners track what matters, Dr. Bultema is here to help you move from stuck to strategic.

What CoCap Offers

CoCap works with foundations, public agencies, collaboratives, and coalitions to make strategy and systems work for people and communities. Consulting services include:

• Strategic learning & capacity building

• Systems evaluation design & implementation

• Network analysis, mapping & application

• Equity-centered, evidence-based decision making support

Whether you need a thought partner, evaluator, or just someone to help connect the dots, CoCap is here to help.

What Dr. Bultema Brings to the Table

• Collaborative Systems Scientist at the Public Health Institute

• Lead creator of the Toolbox for Measuring Cross-Sector Alignment

• Author of numerous publications on collaborative partnerships, systems change, and health equity

• Recipient of the Best Dissertation Award from the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs

• Presenter at national conferences and web forums on various public health and network science topics.

How It All Started

Back in 2019, halfway through my PhD program, I unexpectedly launched a consulting business—mostly so I could keep helping my former employer, Spokane Regional Health District, with an assessment of Eastern Washington’s community health system. After this I was offered an opportunity to consult for the Public Health Institute (PHI) to conduct a network analysis for the National Alliance for Health. Then I accepted a job at PHI to lead the Population Health Innovation Lab’s (PHIL) Aligning Systems for Health research initiative, which built upon my dissertation work. So the LLC took a nap.

Fast forward to 2025: the Strategic Collaboration workshop I helped develop while working at PHIL needed a new home. I offered to keep it going under my LLC—but let’s be honest, Bultema Consulting was never supposed to be a public-facing brand. So, with a fresh purpose came a fresh identity: Collaborative Capacity Co, or CoCap.

CoCap exists to offer clear, grounded, and action-oriented support to partners working toward equity and well-being. We build the tools, strategies, and trust that cross-boundary collaborations need to thrive.