Dennis M. Kirschbaum, ARM

Dennis M. Kirschbaum is Hillel’s Associate Vice President for Campus Services. Prior to coming to Hillel, Dennis served as executive director the of Public Risk Management Association, a professional association serving risk managers in state and local government and as manager of information technology for the Nonprofit Risk Management Center. He has a B.A. from Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. and a M.A. degree in Jewish Studies from Baltimore Hebrew University. He also holds the Associate of Risk Management designation from the Insurance Institute of American. He is a published writer and poet and was recognized by his colleagues as the “person most likely to run into a burning building to save his iPhone.” He resides with his family in Washington Grove, Md.

Melanie Lockwood Herman

Melanie Herman is the Executive Director and CEO of the Nonprofit Risk Management Center, a nonprofit management assistance organization dedicated to helping nonprofit leaders cope with inevitable uncertainty. The Center provides training, technical assistance and informational resources to help nonprofits take a practical approach to managing risk so that they can fulfill their missions and stay out of trouble.

A prolific author of a more than a dozen books on various risk management topics, Melanie has delivered countless workshops, seminars, and keynote presentations to a wide array of organizations, and leads the Center's consulting team serving large, complex nonprofits. Her recent clients include the USOC and individual NGBs. Melanie earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Urban Affairs from American University (Washington, DC) and a Juris Doctor from George Mason University (Arlington, VA). She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association.

In 2010, Melanie was appointed to serve on the Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee (NAC) of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (www.fasb.org) and she also serves on one national and three local nonprofit boards. In August 2012 Melanie was named (for the fourth time) to the NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50, a list of "executives and thinkers ... selected for the impact they have now and for the innovative plans they are putting in place to evolve the charitable sector." 

A calculated risk taker, Melanie loves raw fish, scalding coffee, and riding motorcycles (she always wears a helmet).

Chris Croll

As the Center’s Marketing & Communications Director, Chris is responsible for making risk management approachable and fun—a seemingly impossible task for which she is uniquely qualified! Chris has spent the past 20 years helping companies launch interactive programs and marketing campaigns. Chris started her career on Madison Avenue producing multimedia on floppy disks. It took nine separate disks to load "The Absolut Museum," the first program Chris worked on, which was an interactive virtual walk through of Absolut Vodka's artist print ads.

Then after Al Gore invented The Internet in the early 1990's, Chris was hired by large telco and cable companies to help them launch broadband programming for their high speed networks. Chris was then recruited to help IT research and advisory firm GartnerGroup (now Gartner) play in the dotcom space. Next Chris relocated to Virginia to spearhead the launch of AOL's first brand extension - AOL for Small Business, which signed up 400,000 small business subscribers in its first year. While at AOL, Chris led teams responsible for AOL's classifieds content channels (Autos, Real Estate, Jobs, Computing and Yellow Pages), which generated in excess of $100M in revenue for the company. Chris has been an invited speaker at Comdex, Symposia in Australia and for Paul Kagan conferences and she has been interviewed by CNN, "USA Today" and other national media. For the past several years, Chris has been serving as President of Croll Ventures, LLC which provides management consulting and writing services to help companies achieve greater return on investment from their marketing and social media initiatives. In her off hours, Chris writes articles and pens an advice column called "Ask Chris: What to Say When..." for a lifestyle magazine that reaches 250,000 women in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area.

Chris earned a Master's in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Television & Radio from Ithaca College. Chris has also been known to brag about earning a PhD in GSD (getting stuff done!) Chris speaks French which came in handy when she moved to Paris in early 1992 to serve as an Assistant Manager at Disneyland Paris. Chris is now learning Mandarin which will come in handy when she orders takeout. Chris lives in Leesburg with her patient husband, her even more patient Yellow Lab Maggie and her two extraordinarily impatient children, ages 5 and 7. Follow Chris on Twitter at @chriscroll or become a fan of Croll Ventures, LLC on Facebook.

Chris Romm

Chris Romm is the Director of Risk Management at the Non Profit Insurance Program (NPIP), where she leads the development and delivery of a wide array of Risk Management Tools and Services.  Chris has been a featured presenter at the SUMMIT for the past two years, as well as other Conferences throughout the Pacific Northwest.  Chris earned her Master’s in Education and spent nearly 20 years as a professional educator before joining NPIP.  During this time she received local and regional honors and recognitions.  Chris is very active as a volunteer for many community organizations and has chaired a variety of fine art programs and co-founded a local music festival. 

Dr. Jeff Salz

Adventure is a matter of attitude-not altitude. Either change affects you, or you affect change. When you choose to affect change, life becomes an adventure. Your vision becomes a creative force that inspires everyone and everything around you. In times of transformation, success depends on maintaining the positive, pro-active perspective of adventure.
            -Dr. Jeff Salz

Dr. Jeff Salz—cultural anthropologist, explorer, and journalist-has made a life out of adventure. He has traversed most of the remaining blank spots on the map, living with the Turkestani Khazaks of Central Asia, riding with the Gauchos of Argentina and nomads of Mongolia, and searching for Shangri-La among the lost valleys of the Himalayas. For three months, he led the Chinese army on a merry chase while traveling in disguise with the Khampa nomads of Tibet. Traveling the Andes on horseback, skis, and foot, he traversed the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, scaled its unclimbed summits, and followed in the footsteps of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He has explored lost cities along the Amazon. And, sailing in a traditional reed boat, he became the first person to sail around Lago Titicaca, the sacred lake of the ancient Incas and the world's highest navigable waterway.

Salz has successfully translated his lifetime of explorations into motivational presentations. As one of the nation's foremost authorities on bringing the spirit of adventure into daily life, he is founder and president of Salz & Associates, a management consulting organization dedicated to innovative approaches to personal and organizational change. A partial list of his recent clients includes Aetna, Motorola, GTE, Pacific Bell, Hewlett Packard, and The Walt Disney Company.

Salz is also the author of The Way of Adventure: Transforming Your Life and Work with Spirit and Vision.

He takes his audiences on a lively exploration of the adventure perspective as a strategy for increasing effectiveness on the job and in daily life. To successfully negotiate adverse and unexpected circumstances, an adventurer must be creative. This ability must now belong to us all. In unfamiliar territory, the leader is the person with the map. Salz offers that map. Sharing colorful slides and thought-provoking insights gained from his worldwide expeditions, he skillfully guides audience members through the uncertainties of a changing world, inspiring them to chart their own course, achieve their goals, and turn each day into a "peak experience." His humorous style and profound sense of humanity make each presentation a memorable event, and audiences come away with a new sense of enthusiasm for their lives and careers.

Salz holds a bachelor's degree in outdoor education from Prescott College, a master's degree in education from International College, and a doctorate of philosophy in cultural anthropology from Ryokan College. He taught for ten years at San Diego State University, where he was named Outstanding Professor, drawing the university's largest enrollment for a non-required course. Let him instill the adventure of change at your next event!

Michael Gurtler

Mike Gurtler is a risk management professional who enjoyed 25 years as a YMCA professional before forming Safe-Wise Consulting in 2007. Safe-Wise works with nonprofits all over the US helping to nurture sound safety and risk management practices. Mike subscribes to the Center’s broad but practical approach to risk management and tries to avoid being type-cast as an expert who tells people what they cannot do. Mike is a key team member in the Center’s youth-protection, aquatic safety and recreation consulting practice. According to Mike, “I think the challenge for insightful risk consulting is being able to say “Yes” in a responsible way that is acceptable to the organization and its mission.” Mike has produced a substantial body of topical resources on various risk management topics and is a capable and popular trainer and presenter.

Mike lives in Maine with his family: Michele (spouse of 17 years), Mason (son of 9 years going on 30), Bella (the dog) and Lucy (a very independent cat). The Gurtler family braves the New England winters in order to enjoy the mountains, lakes, ocean and small town community living. An avid basketball player, Mike can often be found at the local Y chasing after his errant shot attempts and setting up orange safety cones.

Joan Dove

Joan has over 33 years of commercial lines insurance underwriting, marketing, and brokerage experience. Her background enables her to assess risk, properly identify exposures and effectively negotiate pricing, terms and conditions to satisfy all stakeholders.

Joan specializes in providing insurance and risk management solutions for  YMCAs, cultural institutions, universities & colleges, nonprofit  and real estate clients throughout the country.  She is a producer and Unit Manager for Gallagher San Francisco and works with clients across the U.S. Joan gives numerous seminars on risk management for nonprofits in the areas of child abuse prevention, supervisor training, claims management, employee and volunteer safety. She helps organizations develope cost effective insurance and risk management programs to protect their assets and reputation.

Joan prides herself on providing superior service and expertise to her clients. She was named  “Power Broker” in the nonprofit sector by Risk & Insurance Magazine for her work with YMCAs in 2009 and again in 2011.

Paula Cozzi Goedert

Paula Cozzi Goedert is a partner in the Chicago office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP where she chairs the Associations and Foundations Practice Group.  She concentrates her practice on the representation of non-profit organizations, including professional societies, trade associations, public charities and private foundations.  She is listed in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the Non-Profit/Charities area.

Brian Zygmunt, CPA

Brian Zygmunt has over fourteen (14) years of total professional experience. This includes over eleven years of audit and business advisory experience with the majority in the Public Sector arena, specializing in higher education, religious organizations, private foundations, membership organizations, social service agencies and other not-for-profit organizations. Brian has significant experience in relation to financial reporting, budgeting, and governmental regulations.

Brian's professional experience also includes time spent overseeing the accounting function as the controller of a privately held for profit company.

Brian is a Certified Public Accountant. His has professional affiliations with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. He is a member of the Illinois CPA Society’s Not-For-Profit Committee.

Kimberly A. Pendo, Esq.

"Kimberly A. Pendo is a founding Member of Chicago Law Partners, LLC, where she practices not-for-profit and corporate law. Kimberly counsels not-for-profit organizations on all aspects of their business and operations.  She is a frequent speaker on association-related topics and a regular contributor to association magazines and newsletters.

Kimberly is the current chair of the Association Forum of Chicagoland’s Public Policy Committee, and a past chair of the Chicago Bar Association Trade & Professional Associations Law Committee.  She is also a member of the American Society of Association Executives, for which she serves on the Chicago Legal Symposium Planning Committee.  In 2006, the Cook County Bar Association presented Kimberly with its President Award in recognition of her outstanding service to the association.As part of her work within the association community, Kimberly played a key role in authoring a series of recent amendments that updated and modernized the Illinois Not For Profit Corporation Act on behalf of the Association Forum of Chicagoland."              

Sally J. Scott

Sally J. Scott is a partner in the Labor & Employment and Education Practice Groups at Franczek Radelet P.C.  She represents management in both the private and public sectors in all aspects of labor and employment law.  She counsels clients and litigates matters relating to discrimination and civil rights claims, sexual harassment, wrongful discharge, breach of contract and the enforcement of non-competitive agreements. Sally uses her substantial experience to provide day-to-day counseling to employers on how to best achieve their business objectives while limiting the risks of litigation.  Her labor experience includes collective bargaining, arbitrations, union organizing campaigns and defending unfair labor practice claims. 

Diana Del Bel Belluz

Diana Del Bel Belluz is President and founder of Risk Wise Inc. For over 20 years, she has worked with executives and management teams who are concerned that their organization is under-performing because their people are mired in fixing problems instead of delivering on their objectives and persistently advancing the organization’s mission while building an effective and adaptable organization. Diana has a talent and passion for enabling decision-makers from the boardroom to the mailroom to anticipate risk as part of their DNA. She helps executives in the corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors to implement a systematic approach to risk management. Her forte is helping organizations to solve the people issues associated with fully and consistently implementing risk management at the enterprise and operational levels. When managers learn how to confidently select the right opportunities to pursue and then manage the outcomes for success, performance, accountability, and resilience are consistently increased.

Matt Eshleman

Matthew Eshleman, Director of Professional Services, CITI As the Director of Community IT Innovators’ Professional Services group Matthew Eshleman helps to identify and shape the company’s strategy in assessing and recommending technology solutions to a wide variety of non-profit organizations. With over 10 years of experience in advanced network engineering and infrastructure design, he fundamentally understands how technology works and is able to blend both traditional and cloud technologies into practical IT solutions. Matt has dual degrees in CS and CIS and an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore MD with his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter. When not at work you may find him singing with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society or brewing a hoppy IPA.

Edward M. Mulherin, CPA, Esq.

Ed has over 30 years of experience providing audit, accounting and consulting services to hundreds of nonprofit clients. He is an expert in nonprofit financial management and accounting is a frequent speaker on a range of nonprofit finance matters at conferences and schools each year. Ed and his Team are extremely mission driven and take great pride in helping their clients achieve their mission thru strong financial management.

Ed is the Founder of  eCratchit, a revolutionary concept for web based bookkeeping and accounting services. The company currently has 25 employees and has worked with hundreds of nonprofit clients located nationwide.

Ed is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and a CPA

David W. McConnell

David McConnell is currently the Executive VP / Chief Financial Officer for One Hope United as well as the founder/owner of McConnell Financial LLC.  OHU provides protective services to children and their families while McConnell Financial specializes in merger and other fiscal related services to the NFP community. David’s other employments include: Senior VP for Administration and then M&A Services for the Gateway Foundation, CFO of the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, Business Manager  of the Boston YWCA, Manager of Financial Operations of  Cambridge (MA) Public Schools, and Assistant Controller of Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries.

In his 42 years of human service employment, he has led or otherwise had a vital role in six mergers including a purchase of 4 early childhood centers, merger with a mental health / addiction treatment center, and others.

Brian Zygmunt, CPA

Brian Zygmunt has over fourteen (14) years of total professional experience. This includes over eleven years of audit and business advisory experience with the majority in the Public Sector arena, specializing in higher education, religious organizations, private foundations, membership organizations, social service agencies and other not-for-profit organizations. Brian has significant experience in relation to financial reporting, budgeting, and governmental regulations.

Brian's professional experience also includes time spent overseeing the accounting function as the controller of a privately held for profit company.

Brian is a Certified Public Accountant. His has professional affiliations with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Illinois CPA Society. He is a member of the Illinois CPA Society’s Not-For-Profit Committee.

Woods Bowman

Woods Bowman, PhD, is an economist and Emeritus Professor of Public Services Management at DePaul University in Chicago. Before joining the faculty he served as Chief Financial Officer of Cook County, Illinois, where he was responsible for risk management. Earlier he served as an elected member of the Illinois House of Representatives, where he was chair of an appropriations committee. His nonprofit experience includes consulting, service on boards, and interim CEO of Goodwill Industries of Metropolitan Chicago, for which he received the 1998 Chairman’s Award from Goodwill Industries International. He is the author of numerous papers that have appeared in peer-reviewed and practitioner journals, and as chapters in edited volumes and entries in edited encyclopedias. He writes the “Nonprofit Ethicist” column for the Nonprofit Quarterly.

Dana M. Pearl

Dana M. Pearl is a human resources consultant specializing in training programs on EEO issues, including sexual harassment awareness and prevention, age, pregnancy, national origin, race, religious, and other forms of employment discrimination. Ms. Pearl also assists companies with their internal investigations into most types of employment discrimination. She started her own company, The HUMAN Organization, Inc., in 1992 to provide these, and other, EEO services to her clients.

 Ms. Pearl has a BA in Spanish and Sociology from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and a MBA in Personnel Management from Loyola University in Chicago, IL.She has held human resources management positions in both the private and the non-profit sectors and spent over three years with the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as an investigator. Professional memberships include the Evanston, Wilmette, Gay/Lesbian and Illinois Chambers of Commerce, and NELA-IL (National Employment Lawyers Association) as a non-attorney member."

Mark Hessel

Mr. Hessel has specialized in the appraisal of real and personal property for public entities and nonprofit organizations for over 27 years.  The primary purposes of his work have included property insurance and cost accounting/depreciation studies.  Clients served include large property carriers, risk pooling organizations, individual units of government and special districts, educational concerns at all levels, and individual nonprofits such as religious institutions and private schools.  His responsibilities at Hirons currently include overseeing their national insurance appraisal practice, managing key accounts and devlopment of new business.  Affiliated with professional organizations too numeous to list, he was formally educated at the University of WI - Milwaukee

Paula Cozzi Goedert

Paula Cozzi Goedert is a partner in the Chicago office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP where she chairs the Associations and Foundations Practice Group.  She concentrates her practice on the representation of non-profit organizations, including professional societies, trade associations, public charities and private foundations.  She is listed in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® in the Non-Profit/Charities area.

Gary K. Moore

Gary K. Moore attended the University of Illinois, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1969 and a Master of Arts Degree in 1971.  In 1974, he received his Juris Doctor Degree from Loyola University School of Law.  He has tried more than 75 jury trials, dozens of bench trials and has successfully argued appeals before the Illinois Appellate Court and the Supreme Court of Illinois.  Throughout his career Mr. Moore has been privileged to defend clients in an array of large damages cases with intense media exposure.  His defense of the country's most prominent youth mentoring organization in a sexual abuse case culminated in a landmark Appellate Court opinion favorable to national youth services organizations.  He has authored articles on the defense of sex abuse cases and is widely sought after to speak at conferences on the subject.   

Matt Eshleman

Matthew Eshleman, Director of Professional Services, CITI As the Director of Community IT Innovators’ Professional Services group Matthew Eshleman helps to identify and shape the company’s strategy in assessing and recommending technology solutions to a wide variety of non-profit organizations. With over 10 years of experience in advanced network engineering and infrastructure design, he fundamentally understands how technology works and is able to blend both traditional and cloud technologies into practical IT solutions. Matt has dual degrees in CS and CIS and an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University. He lives in Baltimore MD with his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter. When not at work you may find him singing with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society or brewing a hoppy IPA.

Mark Addleson

Mark Addleson is an Associate Professor of Management Economics at George Mason University School of Public Policy.

Before joining George Mason University in 1994, Professor Addleson taught for more than 20 years in his native South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand's Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was head of the General Management program (marketing, strategy, economics).

From 1996 until 2006 Professor Addleson directed the Masters program on Organization Development and Knowledge Management. The program focus is on group and team-based approaches to organizing, including understanding the role of communities of practice in the workplace. Managing projects requires managing and assessing knowledge and knowledge transfer in addition to work flow.

In 2001 Professor Addleson introduced a Masters program in Knowledge Management in the School of Public Policy.

From 1989 to 1994, Professor Addleson was a director of Econometrix, a firm of consultants with clients across all sectors of the economy. He has consulted with many companies and public and non-profit organizations both in the United States and South Africa. Most recently, he consulted on the University of Maryland's TAMAR Project (Trauma, Addictions, Mental health And Recovery), using organizational learning ideas and practices in an integrated trauma treatment and education program for women with co-occurring disorders who are inmates in detention centers. Currently he is working in the area of organizational coaching, to develop new approaches to organizational change.

Professor Addleson publishes regularly in academic journals and has authored books, newspaper articles, and papers presented at local and overseas conferences. Topics include urban and regional policy and regional manufacturing in South Africa, and the foundations of social theory and the nature of management decisions. He has been awarded numerous research grants and the Wits Business School's award for teaching excellence.

Cecil A. Lynn III

Cecil A. Lynn is a highly-regarded thought-leader in the area of electronic discovery. He speaks and publishes on a wide variety of eDiscovery topics, including:

•Data retention

•Data collection

•Document review

•Data accessibility

•International eDiscovery

Cecil serves as an instructor for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy where he teaches courses in e-discovery, deposition skills and trial advocacy. He has also taught a university-level eDiscovery certification program at California State University at Fullerton and is a former adjunct professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California.

 Previously, Cecil worked as general counsel for an international apparel company which gave him an understanding of the corporate law department environment. Prior to working in-house, he litigated several civil and criminal cases while working at two prestigious California-based law firms. In addition, he served as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section of the United States Department of Justice and served as a special prosecutor for the National Church Arson Task Force.

Cecil A. Lynn is a highly-regarded thought-leader in the area of electronic discovery. He speaks and publishes on a wide variety of eDiscovery topics, including:

•Data retention

•Data collection

•Document review

•Data accessibility

•International eDiscovery

Cecil serves as an instructor for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy where he teaches courses in e-discovery, deposition skills and trial advocacy. He has also taught a university-level eDiscovery certification program at California State University at Fullerton and is a former adjunct professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, California.

Previously, Cecil worked as general counsel for an international apparel company which gave him an understanding of the corporate law department environment. Prior to working in-house, he litigated several civil and criminal cases while working at two prestigious California-based law firms. In addition, he served as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section of the United States Department of Justice and served as a special prosecutor for the National Church Arson Task Force.

Michael A. Schraer

Michael Schraer is Vice President, Chubb & Son, and Worldwide Not-for-Profit Product Manager for Chubb Specialty Insurance (CSI), the Warren, N.J.-based executive protection and professional liability underwriting division of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. In this role he has responsibility for underwriting, management, and new product development in the not-for-profit market area.  Michael joined Chubb in 1989 as an underwriting trainee, was elected Vice President in 2001, and assumed his present position in May 2004.  Since 2007, Michael has been a member of the Board of Directors and is currently President of the Nonprofit Risk Management Center (NRMC) in Leesburg, VA.  NRMC is a nonprofit organization that provides risk management services to community-serving nonprofit organizations.  Michael has a B.S. in marketing and finance from the University of Virginia.

Lisa Prinz

Lisa Prinz is vice president of human services for Harleysville insurance company. In this role, she manages the growth, profitability and development of the company’s human services business. Lisa has earned a bachelor’s degree from West Chester University and a juris doctor from the Widener University School of Law. She also holds the professional designations of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Reinsurance (ARe) and Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU), and is a member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. Her outside activities include her position as a board member of Ivy Hill Equestrian Center, a program for special needs children and adults and a board member of the Non Profit Risk Management Center

Lisa currently resides in Limerick, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter. 

Michael G. Liguzinski

Mike Liguzinski, Division President for Great American Insurance Group’s Specialty Human Services Division is in his 30^th year in the insurance industry.  He joined Great American’s Specialty Human Services Division in 1998 and currently oversees all aspects of the Profit Center including strategic planning, organizational structure, reaching financial goals and managing key relationships, both internal and external.  Mike earned a BA from Loyola University of Chicago and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.  He currently holds the CPCU,AU, and AMIM insurance industry designations and was previously on the board of directors of The Insurance School of Chicago.

John Prichard

John began his career with Marsh, Inc in 1991 in their Casualty Risk Management division in San Francisco.  After several years of learning insurance, John joined Heffernan Insurance Brokers, which was a small regional independent brokerage firm.  John spent 16 years at Heffernan starting as a P&C producer, and eventually becoming a senior partner and executive of the organization.  In 2009, John became President of Tangram Insurance Services which is a Managing General Agency specializing in Non Profit Workers Compensation.

Debra L. Zborowski

Deb has enjoyed a long career in the insurance industry and joined First Nonprofit Insurance Company's Underwriting Department in 2004.  Deb is currently Vice President of Regional Operations & Programs.  Her responsibilities include strategic planning and directing the regionalization of operations as First Nonprofit expands across the United States.  Her experience in the nonprofit industry is not limited to insurance. Deb has been an active volunteer with various organizations and implemented a reading program in Texas that still operates after more than 10 years. Her unique blend of insurance and nonprofit experience gives her an invaluable perspective on challenges that today’s social service organizations face.

Edward M. Mulherin, CPA, Esq.

Ed has over 30 years of experience providing audit, accounting and consulting services to hundreds of nonprofit clients. He is an expert in nonprofit financial management and accounting is a frequent speaker on a range of nonprofit finance matters at conferences and schools each year. Ed and his Team are extremely mission driven and take great pride in helping their clients achieve their mission thru strong financial management.

Ed is the Founder of  eCratchit, a revolutionary concept for web based bookkeeping and accounting services. The company currently has 25 employees and has worked with hundreds of nonprofit clients located nationwide.

Ed is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School and is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and a CPA

Andreason Brown

Andreason has close to twenty years of financial and administrative experience in the nonprofit sector spanning a broad spectrum of organizations including social service, alternative design,  performing arts, and for membership/volunteer organizations.  Prior to joining Donors Forum, Andreason served as Vice President of Finance, Information, and Administration with the Executive Service Corps of Chicago.

Andreason was elected in 2004 to the Board of Chicago Dance Crash, a multi-disciplined contemporary dance company and currently serves as Board President.  A Michigan native, he graduated from Central Michigan University with a B.S. in Economics.

Diana Del Bel Belluz

Diana Del Bel Belluz is President and founder of Risk Wise Inc. For over 20 years, she has worked with executives and management teams who are concerned that their organization is under-performing because their people are mired in fixing problems instead of delivering on their objectives and persistently advancing the organization’s mission while building an effective and adaptable organization. Diana has a talent and passion for enabling decision-makers from the boardroom to the mailroom to anticipate risk as part of their DNA. She helps executives in the corporate, government and not-for-profit sectors to implement a systematic approach to risk management. Her forte is helping organizations to solve the people issues associated with fully and consistently implementing risk management at the enterprise and operational levels. When managers learn how to confidently select the right opportunities to pursue and then manage the outcomes for success, performance, accountability, and resilience are consistently increased.

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay

Tracy-Elizabeth Clay provides legal counsel, guidance, and strategic advice in support of Teach For America. She ensures legal and regulatory compliance while promoting Teach For America’s interests in matters related to contracts and general business law, real estate, litigation, employment and labor law, intellectual property, risk management, and insurance. Clay also serves as corporate secretary for Teach For America. In addition, Clay was the founding general counsel and corporate secretary for Teach For All, Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization which provides technical assistance and support to social entrepreneurs in more than 25 countries who are applying the teacher-leadership development model pioneered by Teach For America to educational inequities that exist within their countries. Clay also serves as general counsel for Leadership for Educational Equity, a social welfare organization dedicated to fostering the public leadership of Teach for America. Tracy-Elizabeth Clay clerked for the Hon. Anne E. Thompson of the US District of New Jersey and is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School (magna cum laude).

Debbie Johnson

Debbie Johnson is Chief Financial Officer for the American Diabetes Association, the nation’s largest voluntary health organization leading the fight to Stop Diabetes.  She joined the Association in 1998 after developing an extensive background at KPMG in auditing and consulting for nonprofit organizations.

 Since taking the lead as Chief Financial Officer in 2005, Debbie has spearheaded numerous campaigns to streamline and automate the Association's financial practices to reduce overhead and expedite the flow of funds to key Association programs.  She believes that a critical part of her job is to find the right balance ensuring the Association complies with required laws and regulations while still enabling the organization to operate efficiently.  This perspective is directly relevant to her role as staff liaison to the Association’s Board Conflict of Interest SubCommittee.

 Debbie is a graduate of the University of Virginia and currently lives in Reston, Virginia, with her husband and three fabulous sons.

Woods Bowman

Woods Bowman, PhD, is an economist and Emeritus Professor of Public Services Management at DePaul University in Chicago. Before joining the faculty he served as Chief Financial Officer of Cook County, Illinois, where he was responsible for risk management. Earlier he served as an elected member of the Illinois House of Representatives, where he was chair of an appropriations committee. His nonprofit experience includes consulting, service on boards, and interim CEO of Goodwill Industries of Metropolitan Chicago, for which he received the 1998 Chairman’s Award from Goodwill Industries International. He is the author of numerous papers that have appeared in peer-reviewed and practitioner journals, and as chapters in edited volumes and entries in edited encyclopedias. He writes the “Nonprofit Ethicist” column for the Nonprofit Quarterly.

Ann Shanklin

Ann Shanklin is the Director of Loss Control for the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance group of companies.  Joining the organization in 2005, she works in collaboration with the member-insured nonprofits and their insurance brokers to improve all aspects of loss control and safety in the delivery of the many key services nonprofits provide in their communities.

Ann has spent the majority of her career in the nonprofit sector. She joined the group after 23 years with the National Safety Council, where she was the Director of the Western Region Office.

Chris Croll

As the Center’s Marketing & Communications Director, Chris is responsible for making risk management approachable and fun—a seemingly impossible task for which she is uniquely qualified! Chris has spent the past 20 years helping companies launch interactive programs and marketing campaigns. Chris started her career on Madison Avenue producing multimedia on floppy disks. It took nine separate disks to load "The Absolut Museum," the first program Chris worked on, which was an interactive virtual walk through of Absolut Vodka's artist print ads.

Then after Al Gore invented The Internet in the early 1990's, Chris was hired by large telco and cable companies to help them launch broadband programming for their high speed networks. Chris was then recruited to help IT research and advisory firm GartnerGroup (now Gartner) play in the dotcom space. Next Chris relocated to Virginia to spearhead the launch of AOL's first brand extension - AOL for Small Business, which signed up 400,000 small business subscribers in its first year. While at AOL, Chris led teams responsible for AOL's classifieds content channels (Autos, Real Estate, Jobs, Computing and Yellow Pages), which generated in excess of $100M in revenue for the company. Chris has been an invited speaker at Comdex, Symposia in Australia and for Paul Kagan conferences and she has been interviewed by CNN, "USA Today" and other national media. For the past several years, Chris has been serving as President of Croll Ventures, LLC which provides management consulting and writing services to help companies achieve greater return on investment from their marketing and social media initiatives. In her off hours, Chris writes articles and pens an advice column called "Ask Chris: What to Say When..." for a lifestyle magazine that reaches 250,000 women in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area.

Chris earned a Master's in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Television & Radio from Ithaca College. Chris has also been known to brag about earning a PhD in GSD (getting stuff done!) Chris speaks French which came in handy when she moved to Paris in early 1992 to serve as an Assistant Manager at Disneyland Paris. Chris is now learning Mandarin which will come in handy when she orders takeout. Chris lives in Leesburg with her patient husband, her even more patient Yellow Lab Maggie and her two extraordinarily impatient children, ages 5 and 7. Follow Chris on Twitter at @chriscroll or become a fan of Croll Ventures, LLC on Facebook.

Connie L. Lindsey

Connie L. Lindsey is Executive Vice President and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Northern Trust, Chicago. She is the first African-American woman to achieve the title of Executive Vice President in the history of the firm. She is responsible for the design and implementation of the global Corporate Social Responsibility strategy for Northern Trust and the development of goals, policies, and programs appropriate to the brand and business unit strategies. In addition, Ms. Lindsey provides oversight and leadership to the firm's response to environmental matters as well as social issues within the marketplace, workplace, and the community. 

Ms. Lindsey is National Board President of Girl Scouts of the USA, the highest ranking volunteer of this 3.4 million member organization. As Board President Connie is an integral part of the Girl Scout transformation, committed to building and sustaining membership growth and ensuring girls receive a premier leadership development experience. She is also a Delegate for Vision 2020, a national project focused on advancing gender equality by energizing the dialogue about women and leadership. Ms. Lindsey is a founding member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Green Schools, a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, Board member of the Executives' Club of Chicago, and serves on the Board of Governors of the Metropolitan Club of Chicago. She is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow in the class of 2001, and a former board member of the Joffrey Ballet, Women Employed, and Inroads, Inc. Ms. Lindsey attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she majored in finance and has completed the Harvard Business School Executive Education Corporate Social Responsibility program.

Ms. Lindsey has been profiled on national television on PBS' 30GoodMinutes and ABC's Heart and Soul. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Diversity Council's Most Powerful and Influential Women Award, Women's Bar Association of Illinois-Advocacy Award, N'Digo Corporate Leadership Award, Ebony Magazine's 2009 Power 150, Chicago United's Business Leaders of Color Award, Alpha Kappa Alpha Women Changing the World Award, Life Directions-Guiding Light Award, and the Chicago Defender Women of Excellence Award. In 2011 Ms. Lindsey was honored with the Spirit of Achievement award by Loretto Hospital Foundation. She was the first woman to receive the award in its eight year history. The recognition established the Connie L. Lindsey, Cancer Resource Center at Loretto Hospital in Chicago. She is a recipient of Northern Trust's Chairman's Diversity Award and Volunteer of the Year Award; she is an Inroads, Inc. Alumna and has been inducted into the Inroads Alumni Hall of Fame.