Past Events

2000 Annual Conference:
Wired, Wild and Woolly 
- the New Frontiers of Philanthropy

• Speaker Biographies
• Speaker Presentations

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Drew Altman 
President and Chief Executive Officer, 
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation

Drew Altman is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, one of the nation's largest private foundations devoted to health, and a leading independent voice and source of research and information on health care in the United States.  Since 1987, the Foundation has also operated a major program supporting efforts to develop a more equitable health system in South Africa. 

Drew was director of the Health and Human Services program at the Pew Charitable Trusts before coming to Kaiser.  Before that he served as a vice president of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, held a senior position in the Health Care Financing Administration, and served as a former Commissioner of the Department of Human Services in New Jersey.   

He received his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught graduate courses in public policy; he did his post-doctoral work at the Harvard School of Public Health.  Drew is a leading expert on national health policy and publishes and speaks widely on health issues.

China Brotsky
Executive Director, eGrants.org

China Brotsky is the Director of Special Projects for the Tides Foundation and Tides Center, and also serves as Executive Director of eGrants, a start-up Internet foundation founded by Tides to facilitate online donations to social change organizations. She manages Web development for Tides, including extranet development aimed at improving service to and communication with donors, projects and grantees.  

China joined Tides in 1990 as Chief Financial Officer after six years in public accounting. She managed the restoration and development of the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in San Francisco's Presidio National Park - home to eGrants; she is active on the boards of several Bay Area social justice organizations.

Sandy Close
Editor, Pacific News Service

Sandy,  the former China editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, and founder of "The Flatlands," a weekly in Oakland, has been working in journalism in East Asia and California since 1964.  

Since 1974, she has run Pacific News Service. PNS runs NCMOnline (www.ncmonline.com) a daily wire service, a collaboration of 100-plus ethnic news organizations called New California Media; a weekly NCM TV show; a monthly YO! Youth Outlook newspaper; the weekly journal "The Beat Within," featuring the weekly writings of 450 incarcerated youth; and Freedom Manual's On-the-Run.org -- a web site for, by and about homeless youth. 

PNS also organizes forums linking public policy issues to grassroots experience; and consults with government, corporate and non-profit groups to enhance their communications capacity and outreach to ethnic minorities and youth.  In 1997, Breathing Lessons, a PNS co-produced film, won the Oscar for Best Documentary (short subject) at the Academy Awards.

Brad deGraf
Chief Creative Officer and Founder, Dotcomix
Presentation

Brad deGraf has long been a leader in computer animation in the entertainment industry, particularly in the areas of real-time characters, ride films, and the Web. From 1992 through 1994, he was Director of Digital Media at Colossal Pictures, which he and his partners spun off to create Dotcomix.

Prior to Colossal, he was founder and head of production for deGraf/Wahrman, Head of Technical Direction at Digital Productions and lead software designer and programmer at SAIC for the US Army National Training Center.  His credits include:  Mike the Talking Head, the first performance of a virtual character;
Moxy, emcee for the Cartoon Network, the first virtual character for television; Floops, the first Web episodic cartoon; Peter Gabriel's Grammy award-winning video, "Steam"; "Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera", Universal Studios; the first computer-generated ride film, "Journey to the 4th Dimension"; Sanrio Puroland, Japan, the first stereoscopic ride film; "Robocop: The Ride" for Iwerks Entertainment Turbo Tours; and numerous feature films, including "The Last Starfighter", "2010", "Robocop 2",  and "Jetsons: The Movie,.

In his previous life, Brad designed and created sculptural furniture on commission.  He studied architecture at Princeton University and holds a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at San Diego.

Jon Funabiki
Program Officer, The Ford Foundation

A career journalist and media specialist, Jon directs the Foundation’s grant making portfolio on news media issues.  Its current priorities include promoting ethics, credibility and diversity in journalism, strengthening media criticism and promoting freedom of expression.

Before joining the Foundation in 1995, he was founding director of San Francisco State University’s Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism, which developed model programs at the high school, university and professional levels to promote improved news media coverage of ethnic minority communities and issues.

Funabiki is a former reporter and editor with The San Diego Union, where he specialized in U.S.-Asia political and economic affairs.  Reporting from Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and throughout the U.S., he covered news stories and developed in-depth series on Asia’s emerging democratic movements, economic giants and social trends.  

Michael Gilbert
Publisher & Director, Nonprofit Online News

Michael Gilbert is an internationally known nonprofit communication consultant. He is the Publisher and Editor of Nonprofit Online News, the author of The Nonprofit SiteAnalyzer Reports, the Director of the Internet Nonprofit Center, and the CEO of Social Ecology. Michael is one of the world's leading practitioners of Whole Systems Internet Design. He has served as Executive Director of three organizations, as a board member or officer of more than twenty, and as a consultant to over six hundred organizations over the last 16 years. He lives in Seattle and he counts both San Francisco and Berlin as homes away from home.

David Goldsmith, Vice President of Strategic Development for Interactive Application Groups Inc (iapps), has spent the last ten years helping public and private organization make new information technology a part of their work.

He founded LegalAid/Net, an online national network of close to 1,000 civil legal services attorneys, in 1989. He was development director for HandsNet, and in 1996, through a U.S. Department of Commerce grant, established HandsNet's Training and Resource Center in Washington DC.

As a recognized expert in online community building, David is a frequent speaker at major national conferences and events targeting nonprofit and public sector agencies. He serves in an advisory capacity to several nonprofit organizations working to integrate new technology, including the Information Management Advisory Group for the Center on Law & Social Policy, and the Urban Parks Initiative, a joint project of the Project for Public Spaces and the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund.

Christine Hagstrom
Writer/Speechwriter, www.executivewriting.com

Christine Hagstrom has more than 10 years of professional writing and communications experience -- as a speechwriter, press secretary and journalist.  From Wall Street to the White House, she has written for major national corporate and political figures.  Published in the Washington Post,

the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, Christine has written speeches for such prestigious forums as the National Press Club, the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as Harvard and Oxford universities. 

Before relocating to Silicon Valley to focus on writing reports, speeches and websites for technology and financial companies, Christine served more than five years as a political speechwriter and media advisor in Washington, D.C.  She also has  extensive experience in strategic media relations, including crisis management and employee communications.

David Irons
Vice President, AScribe - The Public Interest Newswire

A co-founder of AScribe, David Irons focuses most of his attention on the company's relationships with the universities, foundations, medical centers and other nonprofit organizations that are the source of AScribe's news.

Before starting AScribe, David worked in communications, media relations and consulting for universities, state and local government and both independent-sector and private organizations.  Previously, he was public affairs director at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Before Berkeley, he held similar positions at Harvard University, first at the Harvard Business School and then as director of external affairs at the Kennedy School of Government.

He has also worked as a consultant on local, regional and statewide political campaigns and on strategic communications issues with leaders of private, public and nonprofit organizations, including Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, the Ford Foundation, Harvard Medical School, Purdue University and a variety of West-Coast companies.

Matt James
Director of Strategic Communications, Cisco Systems

As Director of Strategic Communications at Cisco, Matt oversees corporate philanthropy projects, including Netaid.  Prior to joining Cisco, he was senior vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, overseeing its communications, education and media programs.  

Matt spent ten years working in the U.S. Congress, including serving as chief of staff for Congressman Morris K. Udall, and communications director for U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. A member of the board of the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation, he also serves on the board of Grantmakers in Health.

Sam Karp
Chief Information Officer, California HealthCare Foundation

Sam Karp is the Chief Information Officer of the California HealthCare Foundation where he is responsible for the Foundation's information infrastructure and directs its grantmaking in health care information and technology. He has led the Foundation's initiatives in health care privacy aimed at heightening the awareness of consumers' concerns and the health care industry's responsibility to safeguard the confidentiality of personal health information, on- and offline, as a core health care principle. He leads several other Foundation initiatives to design a Web-based enrollment system for public health insurance programs in California and to build a community-wide health information sharing network in Santa Barbara County, California.

He previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of HandsNet, a national technology intermediary that assists nonprofit organizations plan for the use of new information technologies. Before that, he directed a community health and nutrition organization where he pioneered the development of integrated service delivery systems for low-income children, families and the elderly. He served as a coordinator for the USA for Africa Foundation's Hands Across America public demonstration and has been active in a variety of nonprofit organizations, state and national campaigns, and has consulted internationally. Mr. Karp received a B.A. in Political Science from Washington and Jefferson College.

Rebecca Leet
Rebecca Leet & Associates
Presentation

Established in 1985, Rebecca Leet & Associates serves charitable, foundation and association leaders, primarily in developing strategic direction and solving management, marketing and communication problems.  For example, Rebecca Leet & Associates designed the first strategic marketing plan for the American Lung Association and created its current slogan, ‘When you can't breathe, nothing else matters.’  Rebecca speaks frequently about nonprofit issues, and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, PR Week, and elsewhere. 

She is the author of Marketing for Mission  (National Center for Nonprofit Boards, 1998) and the author of more than 20 articles on nonprofit management issues.  She is former editor of the newsletter Strategic Governance for Nonprofit Executives and Boards (Aspen Publishing).

Previously, Rebecca held management or communications positions with a Fortune 100 corporation, a national non-profit organization, the national news media, and the U.S. Congress.

Michael Litz
Chief Technology Officer, Benton Foundation

Michael is responsible for the overall technological strategy for the Benton Foundation, as well as the development and implementation of new technology projects. He manages both the technical staff and the technology researchers and consultants working with the Foundation.  Recent projects include an intra/extranet, database-driven web sites, an e-commerce site, a contingency plan and the production of live web audio and video broadcasts.  In April 1999 he was elected co-chair of the Technology Affinity Group, an association of technology and program officers working in philanthropy He is a frequent speaker at non-profit and philanthropic conferences. In October 2000 Michael became US Director for OneWorld.net, bringing the world’s largest portal on human rights and sustainable development to American audiences.

Michael brings ten years of practical experience in computer networking, web development and technical training to the Benton Foundation. Before joining the foundation he worked as a technology consultant with numerous nonprofits and political campaigns and most recently served as the Information Systems Director for a Capitol Hill nuclear arms control group. He also served a two-year term as co-chair of the Washington-based Information Systems Working Group, an association of technical administrators working in congressional nonprofits. 

Amy Luckey
Internet Campaign Director, Ourforests.org

Amy directs the ourforests.org Internet campaign, a TechRocks project that has mobilized over 400,000 "netizens" to date.  Prior to joining TechRocks, she directed the Massachusetts Environmental Collaborative, a coalition of local and regional nonprofits working together to promote strong state-level environmental laws and policies.  While earning her Masters in Sociology from Harvard University, Amy analyzed the effectiveness of non-profits' political advocacy strategies; her research included consulting projects for Oxfam American and InterAction, a coalition of over 170 non-profits working worldwide.  She graduated from Indiana University, and attended the London School of Economics.

Molly McKaughan
Special Program Officer, 
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Molly McKaughan is a co-coordinator of the Grant Results Reporting Unit, a unit she helped establish as a consultant to RWJF. A former Program Officer at The Commonwealth Fund, Senior Editor at New York Magazine, and Managing Editor of The Paris Review, she started her own writing/editing consulting business in 1983. 

As a freelance writer and editor, her clients have included RWJF, The Commonwealth Fund, Grantmakers In Health, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, The Conference Board, National Medical Fellowships, the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust, the Charles Dana Foundation, the Hastings Center, Lehigh Valley Hospital, the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, the Peer Review Organization of New Jersey, the RAND Corporation, AT&T, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  She is the author of The Biological Clock:  Balancing Marriage, Motherhood, and Career (Doubleday, 1987; Penguin, 1989), and her articles and interviews have appeared in People, Woman's Day, Across the Board, Home, Quest, Entrepreneur, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.

Allan Parachini
Vice President for Communications, 
California Community Foundation

Allan Parachini is Vice President for Communications at the California Community Foundation, which he joined in 1997. After 26 years in journalism, including 13 years at the Los Angeles Times, he left in 1991 to become the first public affairs director of the ACLU Foundation of Southern Foundation. 

He is the founder of CommA, an association of community foundation communicators, and serves on the Media and Public Affairs Committee of the Council on Foundations. A graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, he is also an independent film producer.

Tony Proscio
Freelance Writer & Consultant, tproscio@icnt.net
Presentation

Tony Proscio is a freelance writer and a consultant to foundations and nonprofit organizations. His clients include the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

From 1995 to 1997, as New York City's Deputy Commissioner of Homeless Services, he had chief operating responsibility for New York's 40 emergency shelters for homeless adults. In Miami, he established Homes for South Florida, a bank consortium for community-development lending, and later became Associate Editor of The Miami Herald, where he was lead editorial writer on economics issues and wrote a weekly opinion column. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Delia Reid
Communications Manager, 
Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation

As Communications Manager, Delia Reid is responsible for the foundation's publications, web site and special events. This year, she developed Meyer's web site with the goals of linking the foundation more directly with the organizations it serves; sharing the powerful work of the nonprofits it supports; providing tools to enhance effective nonprofit organizations; and presenting community needs and opportunities. 

Prior to joining Meyer, Delia worked with a number of local and national foundations -- both corporate and private -- including the UPS Foundation, the MCI Foundation, the Consumer Health Foundation and the Arlington Health Foundation. She specialized in helping newly created foundations develop their grantmaking and communications programs and often served as interim staff.

Kathleen Schafer
Principal, Leadership Connection

Kathleen Schafer is the founder of Leadership Connection, a company that helps people develop the skills needed to succeed in the political process.  Leadership Connection also works with organizations interested in improving their relationships with the public, increasing civic participation, and enhancing their relationship with employees.

Clients include local and state governments, non-profit organizations, foundations, corporations, and candidates for public office.  Kathleen's previous affiliations include working with then-State Representative Debbie Stabenow (now a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan); the Departments of Commerce, Transportation, and Management and Budget; co-founder, Mitchell Communications Circle; Public Sector Consultants; and the Michigan Political Leadership Program.  

Kathleen has co-hosted her own nationally syndicated radio show, For Women Only, and is an adjunct faculty member of George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. 

Matt Sharp
Director of Information Technology, 
David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Matt Sharp is the Director of Information Technology at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation where he has served as the lead technologist since 1992. His work includes the planning, evaluation, implementation, and on-going management of all voice and data technologies for the Foundation. He and his staff of eleven administer a wide-area network that links six locations and two hundred end-users.

Matt has contributed to the Council on Foundations Annual Conference as a session designer, a presenter for technology topics, and as annual conference committee member. Matt was a founding co-chair of the Technology Affinity Group (TAG) and serves as treasurer. The group’s charter is to propagate technology “best practices” for grantmakers and grantees, build partnerships between administration and program staff involved in technology, and explore new technologies for use in the non-profit world.

Fred Silverman
Director of Communications, Marin Community Foundation

Fred Silverman is Director of Communications at the Marin Community Foundation, where he oversees publications, the Foundation's web site, and media relations. 

He was previously a consultant in the field of philanthropy, and before that headed Apple Computer's Worldwide Community Affairs program, originally serving as its Communications Specialist.  He has a background in trade journalism, public relations, and as a teacher and musician.

Jillaine Smith
Senior Associate, Benton Foundation

Jillaine Smith has 17 years of experience supporting and promoting the use of computer technology in the nonprofit sector, beginning in the early 1980s as project coordinator for a ground-breaking United States-Soviet satellite/video simulcast.  For seven years, she was associate director of the Institute for Global Communications, a major player in introducing the Internet and its benefits to nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. and the world. 

At the Benton Foundation since March 1996, Jillaine continues to research and promote successful uses of communications technology for social change. She has been a major contributor to such Benton publications as The Learning Connection: Schools in the Information Age and Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age, which evaluate trends in communications policy and practice. Jillaine is currently working on a landscape and analysis of technology capacity building efforts in the U.S. nonprofit sector, and is managing editor of Helping.org's "Resources for Nonprofits."
(www.helping.org/nonprofit). 

Michael Stein
Consultant

Michael Stein is a nationally renowned Internet strategist with a decade of experience working with nonprofits, labor unions and socially responsible businesses.  He is the co-author of two books about the Internet including  "Fundraising on the Internet: Recruiting and Renewing Donors Online," with Nick Allen and Mal Warwick, published in 1997 by Strathmoor Press. 

A consultant based in Berkeley, he specializes in Internet strategy, marketing and online fundraising.  He is also an Internet strategist with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, an affiliate consultant with The Management Center, and a Guide with TechSoup.org.  Recent consulting projects have included Children Now, Service Employees International Union, Independent Press Association, National Abortion Federation, United Nations World Food Programme and California Labor Federation.  He is a frequent speaker and workshop presenter to nonprofits nationwide, and has been featured in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, The Industry Standard and The Nonprofit Quarterly. 

Ali Webb
Communications Manager, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Presentation

Ali Webb is Communications Manager for W.K. Kellogg foundation in the leadership, and food systems and rural development areas.  She manages communications and marketing projects, including working with program staff to plan and design activities and products that communicate the knowledge gained by Foundation-funded projects.

She joined Kellogg after serving as Director of Communications for The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization and, earlier, Director of Communications for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.

Ali has taught graduate-level courses at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Webb received her bachelor's degree in journalism at Stanford University in California. She earned a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University. She is now working on her Ph. D. at Michigan State University in the Mass Media program.

 SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS

Rebecca Leet

Making Social Change in an Era of Personal Power
Rebecca Leet's Thursday morning presentation explained how an innovative use of marketing principles in communications and other programs can help foundations and their partners.
>> Presentation

Tony Proscio

Let Me Rephrase That, or, The Well of Gibberish
Writer and consultant Tony Proscio talked about the jargon virus and potential antidotes, and solicited nominations for the next edition of “In Other Words.
>> Presentation Currently Unavailable

Ali Webb

How to Make Communications Work for Your Grantees
Ali Webb, Communications Manager for W.K. Kellogg foundation talked about research on how foundations are supporting their grantees communications work. 
>> Presentation

Survey Says...

Check out what participants had to say about our conference.  >> Evaluations Summary.

The Communications Network 
1625 K Street NW, 11th Floor, Washington DC 20006
Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved 
Privacy Notice, Best Viewed