Craft Workshops: Speaker Bios
Developing Your Social Enterprise Business Plan (co-sponsored with the Social Enterprise Initiative at HBS).
An introduction of key elements of a business plan, and approaches on how to build.
Tuesday, 27 January, 2009, 5:00-6:00 pm
Hawes 101, Harvard Business School
Stacey Childress
Stacey Childress is a Lecturer in the General Management unit at Harvard Business School, and a co-founder of the Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard University. Stacey studies entrepreneurial activity in public education in the United States. This includes the behavior and strategies of leadership teams in urban public school districts, charter schools, and nonprofit and for-profit enterprises with missions to improve the public system. She is also interested more generally in a range of social enterprise topics, including international social entrepreneurship.
She has authored more than two dozen case studies about large urban districts and entrepreneurial education ventures, and is the co-author of the Harvard Business Review article, “How to Manage Urban Districts.” Stacey is also a co-editor of the book Managing School Districts for High Performance: Cases in Public Education Leadership, Harvard Education Press, November 2007. Stacey teaches in Harvard Business School’s MBA program, where she has won the Student Association teaching award from the students in her Entrepreneurship in Education course. In 2008, she was an inaugural recipient of the Charles M. Williams Award for excellence in teaching, named in honor of one of the School’s most celebrated case method teachers. She also teaches in executive education programs at HBS and around Harvard.
Before working in academia, Stacey was a co-founder of an enterprise software company and spent ten years in a Fortune 500 company in sales and general management. Early in her career, she taught in a Texas public high school. She is a graduate of Baylor University and Harvard Business School, where she was the first woman in school history to be elected by her classmates to deliver the class day graduation address.
Fundraising for Nonprofits I: Foundations and Individual Donors
A Primer on Fundraising – Preparing a Plan, Asking for Money & Understanding Foundations
Friday, 27 February, 2009, 1:00-4:00 pm
Harvard Alumni Association, 124 Mt. Auburn Street, 6th floor, Room 603A
Ellen M. Sullivan
Ellen M. Sullivan is the Director of International Advancement at Harvard University. In this role, she is charged with providing high-level leadership and management responsibility for shaping the University’s international fundraising and institutional partnership strategy. As a key member of the senior management team, the Director ensures that international fundraising and partnership initiatives are closely aligned with the University’s academic planning and identified priorities, with a primary focus on the core teaching and research mission of Harvard University. A member of the professional staff at Harvard University for the past 18 years, Ellen was most recently Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, and previously served for four years as Associate Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, where she oversaw fundraising, external relations, and organizational strategy, as well as a host of student, faculty, and visiting scholar programs. She began her Harvard career as a member of the Harvard College Admissions Office staff from 1990-1998, and before that spent two years as a secondary school teacher in Belize, Central America, as a member of the International Jesuit Volunteer Corps. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Boston College and an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, with a focus on International Education.
Matt Wilson
Since 1983, Wilson has worked in the non-profit field directing organizations to campaign for a cleaner environment and to elect progressive government leaders. Currently, he is the Deputy Director of Corporate Accountability International, a membership NGO which fights against the abuses of transnational corporations. Formally known as INFACT, the organization has led successful campaigns against Nestlé’s, General Electric, and Phillip Morris and is currently waging a campaign to stop the corporate control of water across the globe.
As the National Director of the field staff for MoveOn.org from 2005-2006, Matt helped develop and implement the strategy behind MoveOn.org’s successful 2006 Call for Change program that helped the Democrats take back Congress. Call for Change recruited and trained more than 100,000 volunteers who made over seven million phone calls to targeted voters in 60 swing Congressional and Senate districts. As the Director of Toxics Action Center (www.toxicsaction.org) from 1989 to 2005, Matt assisted more than 300 neighborhood groups fight toxic pollution in their communities. Matt received an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Green Corps (www.greencorps.org), a training school for environmental organizers. Wilson’s fundraising experience focuses on developing the breadth and depth of group membership. He has helped a number of NGOs establish major donor programs. Through the recruitment of new membership and the cultivation of these donors, an organization can develop a stable, reliable and sustainable funding source.
Strategic Financial Management
Key financial management concepts and frameworks that aspiring nonprofit leaders can use to effectively manage and deploy financial resources in nonprofit organizations.
Friday, 6 March, 2009, 9:30-12:00 noon
Hauser Center Conference Room, 5 Bennett Street (within the Charles Hotel complex), Kennedy School of Government
James Honan
James Honan is Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Education. Honan's teaching and research interests include financial management of nonprofit organizations, organizational performance measurement and management, and higher-education administration. At Harvard, he is Educational Cochair of the Institute for Educational Management (IEM) and is a faculty member in a number of Executive Education programs for educational leaders and nonprofit administrators. Honan has served as a consultant on strategic planning, resource allocation, and performance measurement and management to numerous colleges, universities, schools, and nonprofit organizations, both nationally and internationally. Previously, he served as Institutional Research Coordinator in the Office of Budgets at Harvard and as a Project Analyst in the Harvard University Financial Aid Office. He has also been a Research Assistant at the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Clearinghouse on Higher Education in Washington, DC, and has served as Executive Assistant to the president of Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the Kennedy School, Jim teaches a spring module STM-401A: Financial Management in Public and Nonprofit Organizations which teaches the concepts and techniques essential for financial analysis.
Aviva Luz Argote is the executive director of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, at Harvard University. A native of New York City, Aviva holds a Bachelor of Arts from Pomona College and a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School. Most recently, she served as manager of special projects in the Office of the President and Provost at Harvard University. Previously she was awarded a Harvard University Presidential Management Fellowship serving as special projects analyst in the Office of Budgets Financial Planning and Institutional Research. Aviva’s prior experience includes work with the Rand Corporation, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, the Community for Education Foundation, and the Coro New York Leadership Center where she served as senior program director and director of the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs.
Nonprofit Marketing
Identify your target audience (both for your mission & fundraising), articulate your core benefit to these audiences, define your strategies in terms of the P's of non-profit marketing, (positioning, price, promotion, packaging, policy, place).
Friday, 13 March, 2009, 9:30-12:00 noon
Hauser Center Conference Room, 5 Bennett St (within the Charles Hotel complex), Kennedy School of Government
Sandy Hessler
Sandy's goal is to help students and alumni discover their professional aspirations, while ensuring that she and her team create the career counseling, contact & networking opportunities, and skill workshops that help these aspirations become reality.
Sandy is a passionate marketer, social entrepreneur and teacher. She spent the first seven years of her career in brand management at Procter & Gamble - learning to view the world through customers' eyes and building brands and programs that best meet their needs. She then switched her focus to the social and non-profit worlds. A member of the Imagitas founding team (a marketing services company that focused on public service through private enterprise), she led the build out of the organizational plan for a highly successful business. In 1998, Imagitas received a prestigious "Hammer Award" from then Vice President Al Gore for helping build a government that works better and costs less. In 2005, the company was acquired by Pitney Bowes.
Over the past twenty-three years, Sandy has been an instructor at the college level, in the fields of leadership, entrepreneurship and communications. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, she was teaching "Marketing for Social Change" at Tufts University. She has also done significant leadership, teamwork, fundraising and strategy training in both the private and non-profit sectors - past clients include NASA, General Motors and the Center for Women & Enterprise. Consistently, she is able to help people create a vision and make it happen, whether individually or organizationally.
Sandy has an undergraduate degree in Political Science and Communications from Northwestern University, a Master’s degree in Organizational Behavior / Communications from Miami University (of Ohio) and a mid-career Master’s degree in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School. She is on the board of the Center for Women and Enterprise in Boston, on the Alumni Advisory Board at Northwestern University and a strategic advisor to Bantwana, an organization dedicated to helping orphans and vulnerable children in Africa thrive. She is the past vice chairman of the Lincoln Massachusetts School Board.
She stays active with her husband and a family of 4 children and many pets. They are all active snowboarders, rock climbers and adventurers. When she’s not in the office, there’s a good chance she’s in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Fundraising for Nonprofits II: Non-Traditional Capital
An introduction to the nontraditional capital models emerging and how they may be applied in today’s context.
Friday, April 10, 9:30-12 noon
Hauser Center Conference Room
5 Bennett Street (within the Charles Hotel complex), Kennedy School of Government
Andrea McGrath
Director of the Center for Applied Philanthropy
Andrea E McGrath is the Director of the Center for Applied Philanthropy. The Center is focused on increasing the understanding, use and adoption of nontraditional funding streams (program and mission related investments) among philanthropic organizations to help leverage traditional funding streams and create a new paradigm in philanthropy. Andrea has developed a broad perspective of the field of social enterprise and innovation through her work as a researcher and consultant for nonprofits, venture funds, think tanks and academic institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom. As a consultant, Andrea has focused primarily on business development and planning, feasibility studies, project management and recruitment. Her research has been driven by issues critical to scaling impact, including examinations of ‘capital’ needs in the field (knowledge, human, financial) and how policy changes and collaborations between social enterprise and government could help foster, support, and scale innovation in the sector. She has collaborated with centers of social enterprise at Duke University, Yale University, Harvard Business School, and the Harvard Kennedy School on a variety of projects. Andrea’s interests in field-based initiatives focus on scaling innovation through improved collaboration among the sectors and the development of a robust social capital marketplace. Andrea began her career as a fundraiser, and then earned an MBA and joined a global Fortune 500 financial services organization, where she worked as a senior consultant and project manager in operations, worldwide marketing, and global competitive intelligence. Andrea earned her AB from Boston College, her MBA from the University of Connecticut, and her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Luther M. Ragin, Jr., Senior Research Fellow/Hauser Center and Adjunct Lecturer/HKS, is Vice President for Investments at The F.B. Heron Foundation, a national foundation with assets of $300 million located in New York City. Prior to joining the Foundation in 1999, Ragin was the Chief Financial Officer of the National Community Capital Association, a trade association of community development financial institutions that provide access to capital in low-income communities. Other significant experience includes eight years as Chief Financial Officer of Earl G. Graves, Ltd., and seven years with Chase Manhattan Bank, including three years as Vice President of Syndications/Assets Sales for the North American Corporate Finance Sector. He is a member of the Board of Directors of ShoreBank Corporation, the nation's largest community development bank holding company, and The Threshold Group, an independent wealth advisor for high net worth families. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of The Classical Theatre of Harlem. Ragin holds a BA and Master of Public Policy from Harvard, and is a graduate of Columbia University's Executive Program in Business Administration.
Do You Really Want a 501(c)3 ?
Laws & legal issues affecting nonprofit organizations; new IRS requirements.
Friday April 24th, 9:30-12 noon
Hauser Center Conference Room
5 Bennett Street (within the Charles Hotel complex), Kennedy School of Government
Marion Fremont-Smith
Senior Research Fellow
Pamela Peters
Former President of the Florida Philanthropic Network
Marion R. Fremont-Smith, Senior Research Fellow, has been associated with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations since 1998, where she directs research on governance and accountability of nonprofit organizations. She is the author of Governing Nonprofit Organizations: Federal and State Law and Regulation. She has published two other books and numerous papers on government regulation of nonprofit organizations. Fremont-Smith's interest in nonprofit organizations began in the 1960s when she served as Assistant Attorney General and Director of the Division of Public Charities in Massachusetts. She also teaches The Law of Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard Law School. In 1964 she joined the Boston law firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart where she specialized in tax and nonprofit law. She was elected partner in 1971, retiring in 2002. Fremont-Smith received a BA from Wellesley College in 1948 and a JD from Boston University School of Law in 1951.
Pamela A. Peters was until recently the President of the Florida Philanthropic Network (Florida Coalition of 22 Charitable Foundations) prior to which she served as the Executive Director of Rollins College Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership Center. Ms. Peters’s areas of expertise include executive experience in business, government and nonprofit sectors; legal, mediation and negotiation; budget planning and oversight. Peters served as an elected city commissioner and vice-mayor of Winter Park, Florida where she led municipal development, economic development, and transportation planning. She has led cooperation and collaboration among nonprofit, business and government organizations; and spearheaded successful initiatives extracted from successful community ventures in other venues. Currently Ms. Peters consults with small organizations and professionals on management and career development. Peters received a JD from Duke University School of Law and an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
2008 WORKSHOPS
Creating and Nurturing a Value-Adding Board
Recruiting the right board; tapping board talent & resources; building a Board-CEO partnership; avoiding boardroom dysfunction.
Friday, 14 November, 2008, 1:30 - 4:00 PM
Gutman 303, GSE, 1:30 – 4:00 p.m.
William Ryan
William Ryan is a consultant to foundations and nonprofit organizations and a research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. At Harvard, he currently directs the Nonprofit Governance and Accountability Project, a joint initiative of the Hauser Center and Harvard Law School aimed at engaging Harvard researchers in critical questions related to nonprofit governance. Through his governance consulting, he has assisted the boards and senior management teams of human service, aging service and health systems. More broadly, his work centers on nonprofit organizational effectiveness. He has explored how several forces -- including nonprofit access to capital, foundation grantmaking practices, competition with for-profit firms, and nonprofit governance -- shape the capacity of nonprofits to deliver on their missions. His publications include High Performance Nonprofit Organizations (John Wiley & Sons, 1999) and, with Richard P. Chait and Barbara E. Taylor, Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), which has been honored with awards from the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, Association of Fundraising Professionals, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, and Independent Sector. He holds a BA from Columbia University and a Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
Katya Fels Smyth
Katya Fels Smyth is Founder and Principal of the Full Frame Initiative, to which she brings nearly two decades of experience in program development and services, community networking, and creating social will to address seemingly intractable social problems. Katya has continued advancing the Initiative’s priorities as a Research Fellow at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Prior to launching the Full Frame Initiative in 2007, Katya founded and led On The Rise, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based organization providing innovative and effective support and community to the area’s most disenfranchised women. In her 11 years at On The Rise, the organization helped over 1000 women achieve new levels of safety and personal agency. A recognized social entrepreneur, Katya is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Clark University's Graduate School of Management. Her honors include being named one of five “Moms Who Change the World” by Working Mother magazine in 2006, being a profiled “Agent of Change” in the 22nd edition of Government by the People (one of the most widely used political science textbooks), the Boston Business Journal’s 40 under 40 in 2002, and being named one of 125 women leaders in Massachusetts by the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union. She is a member of the Massachusetts Governor's Council to Address Sexual and Domestic Violence, and serves on the boards of directors of a number of Massachusetts community-based organizations. Katya graduated from Harvard in 1993 and received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from the Episcopal Divinity School in 2004.
Starting a Nonprofit/NGO
Is a 501c3 the best way to launch your innovative idea? Exploring options.
Friday, 3 October, 2008, 9:00 – 11:00 am
Hauser Center conference room
Cheryl Dorsey
Cheryl Dorsey is an accomplished social entrepreneur with expertise in health care, labor issues and public policy, and was named President of Echoing Green in May 2002. She is the first Echoing Green Fellow to lead this global nonprofit, which has awarded more than $27 million in start-up capital to over 450 social entrepreneurs worldwide since 1987. In 1992, while training to be a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, she received an Echoing Green Fellowship. With it, she launched the Family Van, a community-based mobile health unit that provides basic health care and outreach services to at-risk residents of inner-city Boston neighborhoods.
As a public policy innovator, Cheryl served as a White House Fellow from 1997-1998, serving as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, advising the Clinton Administration on health care and other issues. She was later named Special Assistant to the Director of the Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Labor Department, where she helped develop family-friendly workplace policies and spearheaded the labor secretary’s pay equity initiative. Cheryl serves on the board of the Coro New York Leadership Center, City Year (national), DonorsChoose.org, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), and Freelancers Insurance Company, Inc., a for-profit insurance company and subsidiary of Working Today. She also serves as an advisory board member of the Action Tank for Social Entrepreneurs, America Forward, and the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation. Dorsey is a 2006 Henry Crown Fellow through the Aspen Institute, a 2007 Prime Mover Fellow through the Hunt Alternatives Fund, and a member of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Visiting Committee.
Cheryl has received numerous awards and honors for her commitment to public service, including the Pfizer Roerig History of Medicine Award, the Robert Kennedy Distinguished Public Service Award and the Manuel C. Carballo Memorial Prize. She holds a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, an M.D. from the Harvard Medical School and an M.P.P. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. She writes and speaks widely on minority affairs, social justice, social entrepreneurship, and maternal and child health issues.
Christopher Stone
Christopher Stone is Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of the Practice of Criminal Justice and faculty chair of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management. His work focuses on two distinct subjects: the improvement of criminal justice systems, particularly through the use of performance measurement and empirical research, and the leadership and governance of nonprofit organizations. From 1994 to 2004, he served as director of the Vera Institute of Justice, having joined the Institute in 1986 as head of its London office. In 2006, he was awarded an honorary OBE for his contributions to criminal justice reform in the United Kingdom. Stone serves as the founding chair of Altus, an alliance of nongovernmental organizations and academic centers in Russia, India, Nigeria, Chile, Brazil, and the United States that are jointly pursuing justice sector reform. In all, he has guided the start-up of eight nonprofit organizations pursuing justice from Johannesburg to Los Angeles and New York. Stone received his AB from Harvard, an MPhil. in criminology from the University of Cambridge, and his JD from the Yale Law School. He became faculty director of the university-wide Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations in January 2008.