Helping people reclaim their stories and live with purpose.
Author | Speaker | Trauma-informed Coach | Qualitative Researcher
WISDOM • TRANSFORMATION • KINDNESS • LEADERSHIP
About Melissa Swonger
As a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology at Adler University and founder of The Sage Hill Project, Melissa Swonger leads with fierce love and bold kindness—mobilizing a movement of radical kindness. Melissa’s work blends leadership, faith, and psychology, shaped by her studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.A. Leadership), Fielding University (Evidence-Based Coaching), and the University of Kansas (B.A. Journalism). Her upcoming books include Herstory, The Rise of Her, and her solo project, Whom He Raised. Melissa is especially passionate about walking alongside those in pain, creating safe spaces for hope, healing, and renewal.
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She is married to her husband, Darin. They have four girls and two dogs. She believes being a mom is the best thing she will ever do.
The Sage Hill Project
A movement built on fierce love + radical kindness.
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The Sage Hill Project is a grassroots-to-boardroom movement that turns fierce love + radical kindness into everyday practice. We help people, teams, and communities heal and thrive by combining trauma-informed coaching, leadership consulting, and research-backed tools that build psychological safety, belonging, and measurable impact. We are capturing the impact through qualitative research as the movement is magnified within communities, campuses, organizations, and society at large. Inspired by wise, courageous leadership (think “Hill of Deborah”), we translate science and story into simple rhythms—seeing, hearing, and valuing others—so connection becomes a norm, not a slogan. Whether you’re an individual recovering hope, a leader shaping culture, or a city launching a kindness campaign, Sage Hill equips you to start where you stand and lead with love that changes lives.
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Transformation
Blending theology, psychology, and neuroscience to help individuals.
Leadership
Empowering individuals to lead themselves and others well through strategy, connection, and intentionality.
Coaching
trauma-informed, transformative, and leadership coaching that moves people past what keeps them stuck and creates a blueprint for realizing desired outcomes.
Spiritual Formation
Discover Biblical principles grounded in relationship over religion that create space to know God and love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Learn how He created you uniquely in ways that lead to appropriate self-love, which, out of the overflow, enables us to love others through radical kindness.
" I empower others not just to heal–but to lead themselves and others with integrity, purpose, and restored voice."
~ Melissa Swonger ~
With a unique blend of scholarship, faith, and personal experience, Melissa Swonger brings together psychology, theology, coaching, and storytelling to create spaces that are safe to be curious, connect, and construct. We are better together.