Executive Director 101: Management Training for New Nonprofit Executive Directors

Jeanne Bell, MNA is the CEO of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services---one of the country’s leading providers of training and consulting services to community-based organizations. She is the co-author of "Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability" and  "Financial Leadership for Nonprofit Executives: Guiding Your Organization to Long Term Success" (Wilder). In addition to frequent speaking and consulting on nonprofit strategy and finance, Jeanne has conducted a series of research projects on nonprofit executive leadership, including Daring to Lead 2006: A National Study of Nonprofit Executive Leadership and Securing the Safety Net: A Profile of Community Clinic and Health Center Leadership in California. Jeanne is on the Editorial Advisory Board Member for the Nonprofit Quarterly.

Workshops

Liz Callahan, MA, ACC, was the founding executive director of The CBO Center before joining CompassPoint in 2010 as the Director of East Bay Services and Sr. Project Director. Liz has been consulting with nonprofit organizations for seventeen years and has spent more than 30 years working in nonprofit organizations, in academia, and in government, primarily on the East Coast. She was the executive director of a countywide coalition of nonprofit executive directors, and served as vice president for Public Affairs and Marketing at Recording for the Blind, a national nonprofit, where she developed and implemented the organization’s communications, public relations, and public policy strategies. Prior to that, Liz was the assistant dean for External Relations and Development for the Rutgers Graduate School of Management. Liz also served as the chief of staff to the chair of the New York Mercantile Exchange and was appointments secretary to the Governor of New Jersey.

Liz’s consulting work is in organizational and individual transformation. Her deep knowledge of nonprofits and the environment in which they do their work, along with her own experience as an executive director and her extensive and ongoing training in a variety of methodologies, give Liz an uncommon perspective on how to create change. Liz combines process consulting, coaching, training, process design and facilitation to help executive directors, senior managers, and boards improve the way they lead, manage, and govern. Liz is an ICF-certified executive coach, a trained organization & relationship systems coach, and a certified Team Diagnostic™ coach. She holds a Masters degree in Psychology from New School University in New York City.

Liz’s consulting areas include: governance, planning, strategic partnerships and mergers, and process improvement. She coaches leadership teams and collaborations, and has developed and delivered workshops in board governance, organizational accountability, project management, the board/e.d. relationship, and team effectiveness.

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Steve Lew is a Senior Project Director for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and works with organizations in creating strategic plans, fund development plans, and board development plans. Steve also coaches staff and board members in fundraising approaches and teaches board fundraising within the CompassPoint training series. He is Director of the Fundraising Academy for Communities of Color, an 8 month training and coaching series offered in collaboration with the Grassroots Fundraising Journal.

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Marissa M. Tirona, J.D., is a Senior Project Director with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. She is responsible for the development and management of several leadership initiatives, including the Strong Field Project, a four-year effort aimed at building a strong, coordinated network of domestic violence service providers in California. In 2009, she co-authored a study of leadership and workforce issues across community clinics in California, which culminated in the publication of four reports, including The Pipeline Promise: A Study of Emerging Leaders in California Community Clinics. Marissa recently completed her coaching training through the Coaches Training Institute and provides management and leadership coaching to individuals and teams.

In addition, Marissa develops curricula, trains and consults in the areas of leadership, nonprofit finance, business planning, impact metrics and governance. She speaks often on the topics of financial leadership and impact metrics. Before joining CompassPoint, Marissa was the program director of a national employee rights organization and an employment attorney with two national law firms. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Santa Clara University School of Law.

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Nelson Layag is the training director for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. Nelson’s current responsibilities include the design and management of CompassPoint’s leadership and management workshops, networks, and conferences; strategy and implementation of organizational communications and marketing; and design and delivery of training focused on people/performance management and project management.   Some of Nelson’s recent work and projects includes:

• Co-author and curriculum designer for Supervision: Helping People Succeed Part 1 and 2
• East Bay Nonprofit Forum Program Design and Implementation: Writing Your Organization’s Next Chapter: Strategic Actions for Organizational Impact 
• Performance Management 101: Achieve Results with Your Team, presentation at the Bank of America Neighborhood Excellence Initiative, emerging leaders convening
• Board Basics Online – Curriculum design and development of online course for potential board members (www.compasspoint.org/boardbasics)
• Mission Neighborhood Health Clinics – Three part supervision training and facilitation

Nelson’s passion is working with staff and leaders of social change organizations that serve under-represented communities. He understands and enjoys seeing the power a group of individuals can have when they find a way to work effectively together.  He brings this excitement to his work in performance management, project management and developing a training program that meets the needs of people working in the nonprofit sector.

In his 16 years at CompassPoint, Nelson has held numerous posts including Director of Technology and Director of Education.  During his time as Director of Education, he led the nation’s largest nonprofit training program with 500 workshops and 6 major conferences.  In 1997, Nelson was instrumental in developing the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network  (YNPN) in San Francisco.  YNPN has since grown into a national movement to support emerging leaders in the nonprofit sector.  He currently sits on the board of the Alameda Education Foundation and on the steering committee of the nonprofit online magazine, BlueAvocado.

Prior to joining CompassPoint, Nelson was the Accounting Operations Coordinator at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco and Group Home Supervisor for Star House in San Jose. He was a social worker serving at risk youth in Baltimore before coming to California. Nelson has a BA in Business Administration and Marketing from Loyola College in Baltimore, MD and was part of a group of students that helped lead the development of the Center for Values and Service at Loyola. 

Nelson currently lives with his wife and three kids in the San Francisco Bay Area where he spends much of his spare time coaching youth sports and trying to keep up with school projects, field trips, and homework.  Somehow he finds just in enough time to play drums in a “dad garage band.”  

Workshops