About Us

When people ask me, “What is Blue Grotto’s specialty?”, I admit, I often fall back to describing our work as a niche communications agency. But the work we do for clients – documenting and communicating their core values and best practices – is really all about organizational learning.

It’s your organization’s DNA. And, your DNA is uncovered through the stories you share.

So much of an organization’s story gets left on the cutting room floor. Not because it isn’t valuable, but because it isn’t public. We believe that the most successful organizations know how to duplicate their success. Understanding what worked, and what did not, is part of that learning process. It’s more than just the best practices. It’s the underlying story, detail, and footnote that can make the difference in a project, a product, an acquisition, and a leader’s success.

So, whether your organization is looking for resources to help you celebrate a milestone, prepare for a leadership change, or innovate to launch a new product, Blue Grotto can help you capture and employ the narratives that become your organization’s brain trust. And we’ve proven successful at helping clients to communicate that information across multiple platforms throughout their organization.

Yvonne Hundshamer is the founder of Blue Grotto Inc., a Minnesota-based business that works with organizations to document culture and values, celebrate milestones, and articulate vision. As a corporate history and culture consultant, she has directed both the research and project management on client projects, which include 3M, Medtronic, and National Car Rental. Before becoming a self-proclaimed ‘corporate anthropologist,’ she spent six years in the communications office of Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson.

She encourages clients to think of the excitement and energy they brought to the business or nonprofit just starting out. And, to imagine harnessing that energy today, with an established brand and a history of success.

Favorite part of the job? The opportunity to get an in-depth perspective from her clients through one-on-one interviews. “People are pretty candid in their interviews. It is often very humbling to hear their personal stories of success, and challenges, and then to help an organization learn from those stories.”

Ann Jones joined the Blue Grotto team with a background in one of the most important responsibilities for any organization – as a CPA. She has an inherent understanding of financials and the expectation that investments of resources will support your mission and your brand. Managing budgets, tracking spending, and overseeing payroll for Fortune 500 companies with 5,000+ employees takes focus and relationship-building skills, beyond accounting expertise.

She has two decades of experience in nonprofit volunteer management. It’s no surprise that organizations for whom she volunteers regularly elect her as their Treasurer.

Helping clients better understand and, maybe most importantly, track metrics what makes Ann an invaluable member of your Blue Grotto team.