Founder
I have been helping donors and nonprofits increase the impact of their work in communities worldwide for over twenty-five years. Among the clients I have had the pleasure of working with are The Isabel Allende Foundation, The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, The Chez Panisse Foundation, Grace Family Foundation, CompassPoint, and Nepalese Youth Foundation and City CarShare.
Prior to founding my own philanthropic advisory practice, I worked in the nonprofit sector as a social worker and in the for-profit sector as a financial analyst. I also served for ten wonderful years as the vice president of the Autodesk Foundation, a corporate foundation associated with Autodesk, Inc., the world leader in the design of software for computer aided design. In that role, I oversaw operations and finance, grants and conferences, and collaborated with the president on major programmatic, strategic, personnel, and funding decisions. I also facilitated a network of corporate funders, including Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Charles Schwab, and Arthur Andersen, enabling them to share crucial information and develop collaboratively funded philanthropic initiatives.
From 1996 to 2002, I served as a board member of CompassPoint, the premier technical assistance provider to San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley nonprofits. In that role, I led the organization’s board/staff Technology Task Force and played a key role in the merger of the Support Center for Nonprofit Management (San Francisco) and the Nonprofit Development Center (San Jose).
I currently serve as principal of Wise Giving and development director for Bread & Roses. I am board vice president for Congregation Rodef Sholom in San Rafael, California, serve on the Advisory Boards of Beyond Differences and Catalytic Women, and am a Senior Advisor with New Philanthropy Advisors.
Associates
Wise Giving partners with experts in the fields of nonprofit law, accounting, and organizational development on an as-needed basis. Among those whose expertise I most value are:
Adler & Colvin, Attorneys at Law www.adlercolvin.com
Tracy Gary, Inspired Legacies www.inspiredlegacies.org
Janet Lewis, Nonprofit Accounting
