Bio: Debra Osofsky is a negotiator, educator, problem-solver and workplace expert with a diverse portfolio as a freelance consultant and trainer. She provides advice and direct assistance in contract negotiations and workplace challenges and trains professionals in negotiation skills, contract analysis, law and advocacy skills.

Ms. Osofsky received a B.S. from Cornell in 1985 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989. She litigated with Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge, then advocated, negotiated and trained for the Air Line Pilots Association. Ms. Osofsky has also served in executive leadership positions, first as Executive Director of AAUP-UMNDJ and then as the National Director of News and Broadcast for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In addition to her training and negotiation consultancy, Ms. Osofsky serves as Of Counsel at the Herbert Law Group.

Website: http://debraosofsky.com/

Bio: Mary Fasenmyer Robinson understands how to help nonprofit organizations succeed. She has helped hundreds of nonprofits-large and-small tackle tough challenges and deliver results. A nonprofit expert, Mary is a creative problem-solver with broad experience in the nonprofit sector. She has led multi-million dollar divisions of national consulting firms, co-owned a fundraising software firm, managed product marketing at a major corporation, and served as a director of development. Known for her leadership in product innovation, today Mary helps organizations define strategic direction and achieve extraordinary results. Mary is a peer reviewer for Maryland Nonprofits “Standards of Excellence” accreditation program, a board member of Leadership Montgomery and of Montgomery Women, and past member of the Montgomery County, Maryland Technology Investment Fund. Mary graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University prior to earning a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Website: http://www.capacitypartners.com/

Bio: Marjorie Goldman joined the Capacity Partners consulting team in 2015. She has served as a fund development consultant for over 20 years to hundreds of local, state and national nonprofit organizations.

Marjorie is an experienced fundraising and marketing professional with specialties in strategic analysis, special events, corporate fundraising, grant writing and board recruitment.Prior to joining Capacity Partners, Marjorie served as a fundraising consultant to a diverse client base including The Arc of Montgomery County, the Lupus Foundation of Prince George’s County, and the American Diabetes Association. She worked on the national staff of the American Diabetes Association as the director of special events and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as a national brand manager for Golf Tournaments.

In the field of public relations and marketing, Marjorie worked for the Kamber Group Public Affairs and as an on-air news anchor/reporter for a variety of radio/television outlets. She has served as the director of advertising and public relations for Voit Sports. Marjorie came to Washington, D.C. to work on Capitol Hill immediately after graduating from Colgate University with a degree in English.

Website: http://www.capacitypartners.com/

Bio: Barbara L. Tesner has over 20 years of fundraising experience plus an accomplished career in the corporate sector in business management and financial sales. Barbara established BLT Philanthropy Services LLC (www.BLTphilanthropyservices.com) to expand her reach in helping nonprofit organizations achieve their goals through strategic fund development and management consultation.

Her background encompasses all components of fundraising and includes past positions at Princeton University, The Baltimore Zoo, American Lung Association, Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust (B.E.S.T.), University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC), and George Washington University.

Barbara is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and currently serves on the AFP DC Chapter Board of Directors and Education Committee. She is an active mentor, volunteer, trainer and educational presenter. Barbara has a B.A. in English from Muhlenberg College and Certificate in Fundraising Management from Goucher College.

Website: www.BLTphilanthropyservices.com

Bio: Pamela Clapp Larmee, CFRE, is the principal of Strategic Philanthropy Services, a consulting firm founded in 2006 to provide fundraising, volunteer management and strategic planning services to a range of local, national and international non-profit organizations. Her clients include: Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, Dance Place, District of Columbia College Access Program, Duke Student Publishing Company, Junior League of Washington, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, National Academy of Sciences, Washington Architectural Foundation and Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

Prior to consulting, Pam served as the Associate Vice President of Medical Center Advancement at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. She led the overall development and alumni relations efforts of the Medical Center, including the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and the School of Public Health and Health Services. She also was responsible for the creation and implementation of a grateful patient fundraising program.

Pam also served as the Director of Principal Gifts at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC during their $301.5 million campaign. As Director of Principal Gifts, she led the major and planned giving program and was a part of the senior management team. Earlier, Pam spent 9 years fundraising for the University of Michigan including roles in regional major and planned gifts, campaign events and annual giving during their $1.4 billion campaign.

Pam was named the 2015 Outstanding Fundraising Professional by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Washington DC (AFP DC) Chapter. She currently serves as the 2016 Co-Chair of The Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference, on the Board of Directors of City Blossoms in Washington, DC and as Co-Chair of the AFP DC Advanced Executives Committee. Previously she has served as a Board member of the AFP DC Chapter, as Education Co-Chair for The Bridge Conference and on the Board of Directors of Postpartum Support Virginia. Pam received the 2014 AFP DC President’s Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service. She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of Washington. DC. She holds an English degree from the University of Michigan and an Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) certificate in fundraising management. 

Website: www.strategicphilanthropyservices.com

Bio: Devin Thorpe, founder of the Your Mark on the World Center, calls himself a champion of social good. He writes about and advocates for those who are doing good. He travels extensively as a volunteer doing service, as a journalist finding heroes and as a speaker sharing what he’s learned. As a Forbes Contributor he covers social entrepreneurship and impact investing. He’s produced over 500 episodes of his Your Mark on the World show featuring luminary change agents. His books on personal finance and crowdfunding draw on his entrepreneurial finance experience as an investment banker, CFO, treasurer, and mortgage broker, helping people use financial resources to do good. Previously he worked on the U.S. Senate Banking committee staff and earned an MBA at Cornell.

Website: http://www.devinthorpe.com/

Bio: Kathy Kretman is the Director at Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership. She also serves as Research Professor for the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, where she teaches public leadership. She has devoted much of her career to public service, and the development of emerging leaders in the public and nonprofit sectors.

As an affiliate faculty member of the Corporation for National and Community Service’s National Service Leadership Institute, Dr. Kretman provided executive training to AmeriCorps and VISTA directors around the country. She also served on the faculty of George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, where she taught courses in public leadership, contemporary issues in American politics, and women and politics. As a Program Officer at the Corporation for National and Community Service, Dr. Kretman managed a multi-million dollar portfolio of grants to national and community-based nonprofit organizations, universities and school districts. She served as one of the Corporation’s specialists on service-learning, education policy and university/school/community partnerships.

During her tenure at the University of Maryland’s James MacGregor Burns’ Academy of Leadership, Dr. Kretman directed the CivicQuest Project, a collaborative civic and leadership education initiative between the University, the U.S. Department of Education, and Montgomery County Public Schools. She was one of six educators invited by the Department of Education to identify “promising practices” in leadership education in schools and universities across the country.

Earlier in her career, Kretman directed People for the American Way’s national programs, and advised chief executive officers on emerging social issues, philanthropy, and community initiatives for the American Council of Life Insurance’s Center for Corporate Public Involvement. She has performed extensive research on issues ranging from community and economic development for Regional Plan Association in New York City, to the investigation of discriminatory practices in federally-funded state and local programs for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Website: 

Bio: Michael Breen is Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project and its partner organization, the Center for National Policy.

Breen is a decorated former Army officer, whose service included combat leadership assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. After leaving the military, he clerked in the Office of White House Counsel, where he focused on national security matters and assisted with the confirmation of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Breen co-founded the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, a groundbreaking legal and policy advocacy organization working to establish and enforce a system of legal and human rights for refugees, and has worked with refugees at high risk on the ground in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. He now serves on IRAP’s Board, as well as the Board of Yellow Ribbons United, a foundation that leverages the platform of professional football to serve the military community.

Breen has testified before Congress, and his writing and commentary has been featured in national print and broadcast media, including CNN’s The Situation Room and Erin Burnett OutFront, FOX’s FOX & Friends, ABC’s Good Morning America, MSNBC’s The Cycle, BBC World News, NPR, Time Magazine, Foreign Policy, National Journal, Politico, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from Yale Law School, having studied in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. An avid outdoorsman and former ice climbing instructor, Mike is a proud New Hampshire native and a member of the NH Bar Association. He lives in Washington with his wife and daughter.

Website: http://trumanproject.org/

Bio: Howard Silver’s practice principally involves nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations. He provides tax, corporate and regulatory advice to a broad range of nonprofit organizations, including charitable, health care and educational entities, private foundations, trade associations and coalitions. He also advises the various nonprofit and for-profit entities that are affiliated with, related to, or otherwise involved in transactions with these organizations. Howard has extensive experience in organizing nonprofit corporations, associations, coalitions, for-profit subsidiaries and other ventures; securing federal and state tax exemptions; advising nonprofit boards and management on governance and fiduciary matters; structuring executive and incentive compensation arrangements; establishing and reorganizing health care and university systems; complying with charitable solicitation requirements; advising organizations on the parameters for political and lobbying advocacy activities; restructuring nonprofit organizations by merger, acquisition, affiliation, dissolution or reincorporation; minimizing exposure of tax-exempt organizations to unrelated business income taxes; preparing licensing, sponsorship, joint venture and other commercial agreements for nonprofits; counseling nonprofits on the application of the intermediate sanction and foundation excise tax rules; converting nonprofits to for-profits, and vice-versa; obtaining tax-exempt financing; engaging in grant-making and other nonprofit activities abroad; structuring joint ventures; and preparing Internal Revenue Service ruling requests and assisting in tax audits and ruling appeals; and counseling on other complex law relevant to nonprofit and tax-exempt organizations.

Howard helped establish Gifts for the Homeless and served on its board of directors. He has also served on the boards of several other nonprofit organizations, and is active in advising various public interest organizations. Prior to Joining Hogan & Hartson, he was a research assistant to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice and United Nations Ambassador Goldberg.

Website: http://www.hoganlovells.com/

Bio: Timothy Lyden advises clients regarding the selection, protection, and enforcement of trademarks and service marks in the United States and abroad. He routinely prosecutes domestic and international trademark and service mark applications and registrations for a wide range of clients. He has coordinated large-scale international trademark and service mark filings, involving 150 countries, and much smaller-scale filings. Clients have included large corporations entering new ventures abroad, franchise companies expanding into new markets, small startup companies with international investments, and fast food restaurant chains.

Tim also counsels clients regarding the proper use of their brands and permitted use of third parties’ marks, reviews various agreements and contracts to advise on intellectual property issues, and conducts full-scale intellectual property audits to help clients identify strengths and weaknesses in their protection of intellectual property and identify steps they can take to better protect their proprietary interests. In addition, Tim regularly advises clients concerning developments in the law and resources available to them to train personnel in important practices governed by copyright and trademark law. Finally, Tim assists clients in the policing, protection, and enforcement of their marks on the Internet, including cyber-piracy, meta-tags, and more traditional forms of infringement. Between April 2013 and January 2015, Tim also served as president of the Board of Directors of Legal Services of Northern Virginia.

Website: http://www.hoganlovells.com/

Bio: Michael concentrates his practice on non-profit organizations, including trade, professional and membership associations, public charities, and grant-based organizations (501 (c)(3), (c)(4) and (c)(6) organizations). His work is largely focused on specialized management and advisory services for trade and professional associations, public charities, private foundations, private schools and endowment based foundations. Michael works predominately with comprehensive budget and projection-based system environments in support of senior management and organizational leadership.

Michael has been designing, installing, interpreting and teaching budget and projection based systems for over 30 years. He has conducted numerous seminars and has written articles on budgeting, reserve and investment policies, financial management, fees for services, leading economic indicators for non-profits, and Federal form 990 and the impact on governance and transparency and accountability. He regularly teaches adjunct classes in non-profit management for Georgetown University.

Michael is a past-president of the Greater Washington Society of CPAs (GWSCPA) and a former chair of Not-For-Profit Organizations Symposium and Not-For-Profit Committee. He serves on numerous non-profit boards including B’nai B’rith International and Lois Roth (Fulbright) Endowment. In addition, Michael has served on the Finance & Administration Section Council of the American Society of Association Executives. Michael received a BS in Accounting from the University of Maryland.

Website: http://rubino.com/

Bio: Dr. Chip Espinoza is the Co-author of Millennials Who Manage: How To Overcome Workplace Perceptions and Become A Great Leader, Millennials@Work: The 7 Skills Every Twenty-Something Needs to Overcome Roadblocks and Achieve Greatness at Work and Managing the Millennials: Discover the Core Competencies for Managing Today’s Workforce. He is also the Academic Director of the Organizational Psychology and Nonprofit Leadership programs at Concordia University Irvine.

Chip keynotes internationally and across the country on how to create an environment in which managers and Millennials can thrive. Chip is a leading expert on the subject of generational diversity in the workplace. He consults in the civic, corporate, and non-profit sectors. His client list features great organizations like The Boeing Company, Microsoft, Schneider Electric, and Special Olympics.

Chip has authored several articles on the subject of leadership and is the go-to person for news agencies on the topic of integrating younger workers into organizations. He is a content expert for CNN on the subject of generational diversity in the workplace. He has also been featured on Fox News, CBS Radio, and in major publications. Chip was named a top 15 Global Thought Leader on the Future of Work by the Economic Times.

Website: http://www.cui.edu/academicprograms/adult-degree-programs/nonprofit-leadership

Bio: Fred Wellman is the CEO and Founder of ScoutComms, Inc., where he provides senior-level corporate social responsibility, public relations, philanthropic strategy, veterans and military family issues counsel to clients. He is a retired Army Aeroscout Pilot and Public Affairs Officer and a veteran of four Iraq combat tours. Fred is also the former spokesman for Generals David Petraeus and Martin Dempsey. He received degrees from the United States Military Academy at West point and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He has received many awards for his work, including 2014 U.S. Small Business Administration Veteran Business Champion of the Year for Virginia; 2013 Stafford County, Virginia Entrepreneur of the Year; two-time recipient of PRSA’s Silver Anvil. Fred is also the former Community Outreach Director for Team Red, White & Blue Fredericksburg, former Vice Chairman of the Fredericksburg Area Veterans Council and a member of organizations including AUSA, MOAA, VFW, American Legion, Team Rubicon, Team RWB, and the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce.

Website: http://scoutcommsusa.com/

Bio: Mr. Carter began his career as an Army officer, serving for several years in the active and reserve components as a military police and civil affairs officer. He deployed to Iraq in 2005-06, where he served as an embedded adviser with the Iraqi police in the Diyala province, and worked closely with the State Department’s Provincial Reconstruction Team. After coming home, Mr. Carter became increasingly involved in veterans and national security policy issues. In 2007, Mr. Carter helped stand up the Obama campaign’s veterans policy committee; in 2008, he joined the campaign as its national veterans director, responsible for policy and political engagement with the veterans and military community. In 2009, Mr. Carter served as a political appointee in the Obama administration, responsible for detainee policy issues.

Website: http://cnas.org/

Bio: Matthew Kohut is the managing partner of KNP Communications and co-author of Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential. He has coached thousands of speakers for events ranging from live television appearances to TED talks. In addition to conducting communications trainings for clients in the government, private, and nonprofit sectors, he has served as a communications consultant to organizations including NASA, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Harvard University. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at George Washington University, and a fellow at Bennington College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action. Matt holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Website: http://knpcommunications.com

Bio: Ronit Avni is an entrepreneur and Peabody Award-winning media producer with 15 years of leadership, communications and public speaking experience. She has spoken publicly before thousands of diverse audience members across North America, Europe and the Middle East, leading conversations on geopolitically sensitive topics. Avni is the Founder and former Executive Director (2003-2014) of Just Vision, which creates award-winning films, digital media and public education campaigns to raise awareness and support for Palestinian and Israeli civilians working for freedom, dignity, equality and human security using nonviolent means. A former theater director with years of vocal training, competitive public speaking, recording and voice-over experience, Ronit serves on the Board of Directors of the media and human rights organization, WITNESS. She is a Young Global Leader through the World Economic Forum and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Website: http://knpcommunications.com