Nikole Souder Schale

Nikole Souder Schale serves as the Florida State Director. She has over twenty-six years of combined Government and Government Relations experience.

Nikole is a public health advocacy and planning professional with a talent for process development and strategic agility. Prior to joining Tidal Basin, she created and oversaw the contingency and risk management plans for a global nonprofit focused on supporting community engagement and transformational impact. One of her team’s areas of focus was engaging nontraditional communities and partners to improve public health.

She created and operationalized a brand-new department focused on integrated strategic planning across local, state, federal and global markets with an emphasis on stakeholder engagement. She initiated the association’s first public policy grants and propelled its acquisition of millions in public policy work supported by foundations and private sector grants. Her work revolved around establishing and utilizing metrics allowing the organization to analyze and prioritize initiatives, objectives, current engagements, and future trends.

Prior to guiding the strategic direction of the advocacy team across the globe, she worked in the Florida Legislature for numerous years, before leading the advocacy, grassroots, policy, and government relations team in the Southeastern United States, where she had tremendous public policy successes and won various awards for innovative grassroots and grass tops engagement activities.