Our Consultant Team
The Diversity in Philanthropy Project’s work is administered under the guidance of the Project’s national advisory board, and by an impressive multicultural team of consultants. Following are biographical sketches of the team’s key members and their respective programmatic roles.
Jessica Bearman is an independent consultant committed to the idea that collaborative philanthropy – people giving together through giving circles, community funds and other shared social investments – can bring communities together and help make them more vibrant places to live. Her practice currently focuses on philanthropy advising and organizational development. Previously, she served as deputy director of The Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers’ New Ventures in Philanthropy initiative, a national project designed to grow philanthropic giving. Her work includes significant research about giving among women, rural communities, and racial, ethnic, and tribal donors. She is the researcher and author of Giving Together: A National Scan of Giving Circles and Shared Giving (2005), More Giving Together: The Growth and Impact of Giving Circles and Shared Giving (2007), and of a chapter in the Women’s Philanthropy Institute’s recently published book: The Transformative Power of Women’s Philanthropy. Bearman supports the Diversity in Philanthropy Project in areas ranging from strategic program advising to graphic recording.
Raphael Bemporad is co-principal of Bemporad Baranowski Marketing Group, Inc. (BBMG) and a veteran communications professional with extensive political, government, nonprofit and corporate experience. He has launched national media campaigns, drafted public policy, created consumer and nonprofit brands and managed communications for local, state and federal elected officials. His expertise includes public affairs and cause-related marketing, including pro-social campaigns with leading brands such as Levi Strauss & Co., Sears, Kenneth Cole and Rolling Stone magazine, among others. Prior to co-founding BBMG, Bemporad served as communications director at the national nonprofit Do Something where he oversaw marketing, corporate partnerships and media relations.Bemporad also served as communications director for the Texas Democratic Party, where he managed communications with political reporters throughout the state and directed media relations for the Texas Democratic Party’s state convention in July 1998. In addition, he has served in key communications leadership positions for various Texas elected officials, including state senator Rodney Ellis, U.S. representative Lloyd Doggett and Governor Ann W. Richards. Bemporad assists the Diversity in Philanthropy Project by providing senior branding technical assistance and related marketing campaign advising.
Hugh Burroughs has extensive experience in organized philanthropy. From his base in the San Francisco Bay Area, he has served on the boards of the Council on Foundations, Foundation Center, the Peninsula Community Foundation and CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. He is a past board chair of the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and was an early director of both Women & Philanthropy and Northern California Grantmakers. In addition, he has served on the boards of the Foundation for Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, Morehouse College School of Medicine and Hispanics in Philanthropy. Over a nearly thirty year time span, Burroughs has held senior staff positions at the Berry Gordy Family Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the John Hay Whitney Foundation. His areas of expertise include organized philanthropy, community development, communications and public affairs. Presently, he provides philanthropic counsel to several major grant making foundations. Burroughs provides senior advising, issue analysis and relationship management assistance to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Mary Ellen Capek is principal of Capek & Associates, a philanthropic and nonprofit research and consulting group based in Corrales NM. She is co-author of Effective Philanthropy: Organizational Success through Deep Diversity and Gender Equality (MIT Press, 2006), which won the 2007 Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize for the best book on philanthropy in the nonprofit sector that informs policy and practice. She is also lead author of The Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector Scan (2006), written for the Rutgers University Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leadership. Capek’s recent clients include the New Mexico Association of Grantmakers, the Conference of Southwest Foundations, Chicago Women in Philanthropy, Nokomis Foundation and the Santa Fe Community Foundation.A founding officer of the National Council for Research on Women, a 25-year-old coalition of over 100 US-based research and policy centers, Capek served as NCRW executive director from 1989-1996. In addition, she has served on numerous boards and committees concerned with diversity issues, including the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, the Independent Sector Research Committee, The Conference Board Work/Life Leadership Council and Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues. Capek provides senior advising and field research-related technical assistance to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Kim V. Davis has dedicated her career to building and implementing effective marketing programs and launching new initiatives for nonprofit organizations. She is currently a partner at BBMG, a marketing agency dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations and socially responsible businesses harness the laws of branding to change the world. Prior to joining BBMG, Davis served as managing director for the New York office of the Taproot Foundation where she expanded the foundation’s East Coast operations, leveraging the talent of thousands of corporate volunteers to provide new branding, marketing, human resources and information technology services to over one hundred nonprofit organizations. Davis’s other professional experiences have featured her in important program leadership roles at leading nonprofit organizations like the Twenty-First Century Foundation, Rock the Vote and the Children’s Defense Fund. Davis assists the Diversity in Philanthropy Project by providing branding technical assistance and related social marketing campaign advising.
James G. Fong is principal of James Fong Consulting, an Ashland, Oregon-based firm with a proven record of success in transforming organizations and large institutional systems. He specializes in promoting learning communities, systems thinking and organizational leadership enhancements. Fong currently provides consultation to the Annie E. Casey Foundation in support of its diversity coordination efforts, and also serves as a liaison to Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Previously, as a senior associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Strategic Consulting Group, Fong worked with state and local government leaders to catalyze large-scale system reforms that resulted in measurable improvements in the well-being of vulnerable children and families. Prior to joining the Casey Foundation, Fong held senior management positions with the Oregon Department of Human Services, where he helped the state of Oregon to become a nationally recognized innovation leader in welfare reform and cross-agency collaboration. Fong provides organizational and systems change technical assistance and advising support to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Ruth L. Goins is a Washington, DC-based professional consultant specializing in program planning and organizational development for the philanthropic and nonprofit community. In her practice, she has worked with regional and national organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of their work, designed program strategies for new initiatives and conducted research to help organizations build their knowledge to undertake potential new program directions. Since 1999, she has also served as interim executive director of three national nonprofit organizations – the Women’s Funding Network, Women & Philanthropy and most recently the Community Development Partnerships Network. Goins is a former member of the professional grant making staffs of both the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Northwest Area Foundation. Her recent consulting work includes assignments with The California Endowment and the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, of which she is a past board chair Goins provides field consultation, analysis and technical assistance support to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Ricardo Millett, Ph.D. is principal of Millett & Associates, which focuses on providing evaluation, strategic planning and grant making technical assistance to foundations and nonprofits. Millett most recently spent five years as president of the Woods Fund of Chicago where he spearheaded successful implementation efforts to increase the Fund’s ability to articulate a clear grant making focus and increased local and national collaboration efforts. Previously, he served as director of evaluation at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation where he encouraged improved communications systems and the implementation of evaluation as an integral part of foundation programming. Millett is co-chair of the Governor of Illinois’ New Americans Policy, a National Advisory Board member for Hispanics in Philanthropy, treasurer and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Black Foundation Executives, and a board member of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (for which he leads the “measuring effectiveness” sub-committee). Millett is also an accomplished writer and lecturer, having written numerous leading articles on evaluation including “Evaluation as a Democratizing Practice” in Foundations & Evaluation and “Information as a Management Tool” in Evaluation with Power. Millett provides strategic consultation and technical assistance support to the Project, focusing especially on research and evaluation issues.
Scott Nielsen, Ph.D. is founder and principal of the Alexander Nielsen Consulting Group (ANGC) LLC, based in Chicago. ANCG partners with individuals and organizations to develop pragmatic strategies that promote social change. Specific services include: strategic grant making, research, program design and implementation, program and field evaluation, issue advocacy campaign design, intensive start-up and transition assistance and contract management. His recent clients include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Open Society Institute, the Joyce Foundation and the Marguerite Casey Foundation. Prior to forming Alexander Nielsen Consulting, Nielsen served as a program officer for more than a decade at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago. His primary fields of grant making expertise include issue advocacy, public policy, public interest law and journalism, community development, the arts, and academic social science and humanities disciplines. While at the MacArthur Foundation, he designed, managed and assessed Foundation initiatives in the areas of campaign reform and citizen participation, Native American education and culture, international human rights and racial and ethnic pluralism in the U.S. Nielsen provides field consultation, analysis and technical support to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Anna-Nanine S. Pond is principal of Anna Pond Consulting, an independent private consulting group based in Brooklyn, NY. She specializes in strategic planning, institutional and program development, and research and assessment services targeted to private foundations, higher educational institutions and nonprofit groups across the U.S. Her past and recent clients have included The California Endowment, Hostos Community College, Women’s Leadership Circles and the Leadership Learning Community. Pond is a former program officer at The California Endowment, California’s largest private community health funder. She has extensive additional professional experience as a development staff person at several regional and national nonprofits committed to issues ranging from immigrant rights to the arts.Her areas of expertise include private grant making and nonprofit management, and her particular subject matter interests range from policy-related advocacy and community leadership development to capacity building and fund raising in support of diverse, low-income populations. Pond provides field consultation, analysis and technical support to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Henry A. J. Ramos is principal of Mauer Kunst Consulting, a New York-based private consulting group that specializes in strategic planning, project management, program development, organizational assessment/TA and research activities targeted to businesses, foundations and nonprofit institutions. His current and past clients include: The California Endowment, The California Wellness Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Marguerite Casey Foundation, The Council on Foundations, Healthcare Georgia Foundation, Ford Foundation; Levi Strauss & Co., The W. K. Kellogg Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Nike, Inc., Open Society Institute, The David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Union Bank of California and Univision. Ramos has written extensively on various issues related to organized philanthropy and civil society, and his work and opinions have been quoted in leading national publications including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Crain’s New York Business and The Nonprofit Quarterly. Currently he serves as executive editor of the University of Houston/Arte Público Press Hispanic civil rights history series–a multi-volume collection of books that has been supported by funders including The James Irvine Foundation, The C. S. Mott Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation. Ramos serves as the Diversity in Philanthropy Project’s director/lead consultant.
Catherine (Cathy) Ryan is co-principal of Berkeley, CA-based Luna Productions, a leading documentary production company committed to social justice film making and videography work. She has been involved in professional film and video making since 1980. Working as an editor, sound editor, producer, director and cameraperson, Ryan has contributed to projects large and small, from no-budget independent films to multi-million dollar network specials. During the past decade, in the addition to the ABC network specials ”The Story of Mothers & Daughters,” “The Story of Fathers & Sons” and “Teens,” Ryan has also produced two documentaries that were broadcast in the POV series on PBS: “Maria’s Story” (1991) and ”The Double Life of Ernesto Gómez Gómez” (1999), both of which were multiple festival award winners. Ryan provides documentary and videography technical assistance to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.
Emily Shepard specializes in graphic recording services designed to memorialize in illustrated notations the essence of key stakeholder meetings and discussions. In her graphic facilitation work, Shepard captures and synthesizes information in real time, creating large format charts that have a clear hierarchy of information and an engaging style of imagery and icons. The charts create a "group memory" that gives meeting participants a shared conceptual base and allows them to quickly synthesize complex information, see patterns and develop breakthrough thinking. Following recorded gatherings, Shepard’s charts are digitally copied and made available to clients as a permanent reference resource.
Shepard also creates information graphics for organizations — murals, timelines or strategic illustrations that present complex information in an accessible and engaging format. These “learning maps” can help individuals or groups understand and contextualize ideas and key concepts. Often these recordings relate to a company’s or group’s history, vision or strategy. Her recent corporate clients include: Agilent, Cisco Systems, Genentech, Hewlett Packard, Nestle, Nike, Nortel Networks and the U.S. Department of Energy. Nonprofit clients she has worked for include the California Healthcare Foundation, Head Start of San Mateo County, The Kauffman Foundation, The Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Seattle Workforce Development Council.
Shepard provides graphic recording services to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project at periodic major stakeholder meetings.
Gary Weimberg is co-principal of Berkeley, CA-based Luna Productions, a leading documentary production company committed to social justice film making and videography work. Weimberg has spent the last two decades directing, producing and editing award-winning documentaries. He has won two national Emmy Awards, and edited two other documentaries that were nominated for Academy Awards. In 1999, he was nominated by the Director's Guild of America in the category of Outstanding Documentary Director. His recent nonprofit clients include The San Francisco Foundation and The California Endowment, for which he produced program-related documentaries intended to capture the lessons and impacts of multi-million dollar program investments by these leading private funders. A recent full-length documentary entitled “Ballet Russes,” co-written and edited by Weimberg, was featured at the 2006 Sundance Festival in Park City, Utah and his most recent project entitled “Soldiers of Conscience,” soon to be released in U.S. commercial theatres, documents the stories of U.S. soldiers who have declared themselves conscientious objectors to the current Iraq War. Weimberg provides senior documentary and videography support to the Diversity in Philanthropy Project.