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Category: Encore Fellow Profile

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HARRIETTE COLE

Encore Fellow Profiles

HARRIETTE COLE

AARP

“I like to say I’ve had 39 lives,” says Harriette Cole, 59, whose range of professional experiences include being a model, holding various leadership positions at Essence and Ebony magazines, coaching Black recording artists on public speaking — including Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys, writing seven books, maintaining a weekly column for 17 years and hosting Dream Leapers, a coaching series to help people in transition in their lives to activate their dreams.

When her friend, Encore.org board member Lester Strong, heard that AARP was looking for someone who could help the organization increase its presence in the African American/Black community by leveraging live events and accessing Black celebrity talent, Cole immediately came to mind.

She was game for an Encore Fellowship — a six-month opportunity to work with AARP in a high-impact, paid assignment. The only challenge? A few days after Cole started her fellowship, cities across America began shutting down to slow the spread of Covid-19, and all live events were put on indefinite hold.

Cole had traveled to Washington D.C. on March 9 to meet with AARP’s leadership team and go through an orientation process. “I’m so grateful I was able to meet with everyone in person,” says Cole, who lives with her husband and 16-year-old daughter in New York City. “But by then we could see that things were getting bad and started talking about creating virtual opportunities to engage our audiences in a different way.”

Cole — and others on the AARP Multicultural Leadership Team hired to reach out to a range of ethnic and cultural groups — had a week to find new ways to reach people and offer to help them through the crisis.

“African American communities have been hit hard by Covid-19,” Cole explains, “so I helped develop a fact sheet that’s now being sent all over the U.S. to various AARP offices, speaking directly to the African American/Black community in ways we hope will resonate. We also created a media briefing for Black media outlets, and I worked closely with the AARP team and advertising agency Burrell Communications on preparing for that.”

Edna Kane-Williams, AARP’s Senior Vice President of Multicultural Leadership, is more than pleased with the work. “Harriette has quickly become an entrenched, valuable member of our team,” Kane-Williams says. “Her insights and knowledge about public relations and communications strategy have really helped us raise the bar on the reach and impact of our work. We’re truly honored to have someone of her caliber working with us. What a gift!”

Cole hasn’t stopped thinking about ways to engage Black celebrity talent. There are online events, to be sure. “BET recently had a musical fundraiser, and AARP quickly agreed to sponsor it,” she says. There’s also a new AARP Black Community Facebook Live interview series in the works that Cole will produce and host.

“My plan is to talk to a broad range of people,” she says, “from motivational speakers who will give inspiration for how we can stay positive at a time when it can be a challenge, to more celebrity-type people who have built interesting careers.”

Cole says her AARP colleagues are some of the most respectful professionals she’s ever met. “These groups are often marginalized, and the way everyone is treated in this department is the opposite of that,” she says. “Everyone is highly regarded and acknowledged for their contributions. They welcome my ideas and tell me how grateful they are that I’m there, and that I bring fresh ideas and new ways of looking at information. It feels really good.”

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FREDERICK HO

Encore Fellow Profiles

FREDERICK HO

HomeFirst

The pandemic has made life exponentially harder for the staff and residents at HomeFirst, which provides services and housing to the homeless and those at risk of homelessness across seven sites in Santa Clara County. Technology can make things a bit easier — if people get the equipment and support they need.

That’s Frederick Ho’s job right now. After 40 years in the computer industry, Ho became an Encore Fellow at HomeFirst, taking on the role of IT director just a few months before the coronavirus hit. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind, with new needs rising as the days pass.

When the majority of HomeFirst staff of 200+ started working from home, Ho had to quickly adapt. He ordered a bunch of Dell laptops and dealt with limited inventory and FedEx delays. “We’re expecting to get another batch this week,” he says. Ho also helped the staff learn to work remotely.

And Ho saw that the shelters’ residents needed technology, too. “The internet and WiFi at a family shelter in Sunnyvale were originally established to support the staff,” he says, “but I’ve been working with a vendor to expand the bandwidth so it’s now more available to the families.”

What about the kids? “I also ordered a dozen Chromebooks,” Ho says, “so school-aged children at the shelter can do homework assignments remotely.” (Fortunately, the costs of technology were covered by COVID-related financial donations.)

There’s more. Ho has been involved in implementing a security system and providing Wifi for the residents of the Maybury Bridge Housing Community, which California Governor Gavin Newsom visited this past February. He’s now working on a similar system for a second transitional housing site.

“Fred’s been great,” says Art Stein, HomeFirst’s CFO. “He’s just totally jumped in and been willing to provide IT support in all the ways we‘ve needed it – from getting our staff and shelters connected to making sure we have the right IT infrastructure at the new facilities we’re working to open. It’s been wonderful.”

Shelters don’t close on the weekends — they have to keep going, even during a pandemic. “You can think of the staff and volunteers working with the homeless as frontline workers,” Ho says.

Of course, Ho is taking precautions to stay safe himself. “There have been times where I’m taking delivery of laptops, doing configurations and getting them to the different sites, and that work has some built-in dangers in itself,” he says.

During his regular career, Ho never had the time to do nonprofit or charitable work. “This is really the first time that I’ve done this type of thing, and it’s been rewarding.”

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FRANCESCA VOLLARO

Encore Fellow Profiles

FRANCESCA VOLLARO

Girl Scouts

Motivation

While starting my consulting business in 2016 and getting involved in local volunteering, I remarked to someone at my church that I was doing so much volunteer work that I should find work in the nonprofit arena. And she said to me, “You should check out Encore.org.” I went home that afternoon looked on the website and got really excited about it. I loved the idea of giving back after all my years in the corporate world. So I put in an application for an Encore Fellowship the next day and promptly forgot about it while building up my business.

The Job

A few months later, I got a call from the Encore Fellowships team. They asked me if I might be interested in a position with the Girl Scouts as a change management manager. I was doing a lot of work with helping women and children at risk, and I had experience with change management, so it seemed to be a perfect fit. I interviewed with the chief enterprise integration officer, the woman who would be my manager, and we hit it off immediately.

Meaning

I was a Girl Scout from ages 5 to 13, and I had forgotten how impactful it was to my life and the confidence and leadership skills it gave me. To be working for an organization whose mission is to help girls build their confidence and leadership skills and become people of character means a lot to me. I’ve fallen in love with the organization and all it stands for.

Assignment

I’m now the senior director of process improvement and change management for the Girl Scouts of the USA. I’m working in an area called enterprise integration, which is responsible for developing and implementing cutting-edge technology and related initiatives. I’m fortunate to be able to help translate the changes we’re going through for our 400 staff members and 111 national councils and overseas locations. We’re working to bring efficiency and exciting new opportunities to girls and volunteers worldwide.

Accomplishments

Some tangible and ongoing outcomes of the change management work include the development and facilitation of monthly employee forums to foster cross-functional dialogue, a monthly newsletter to socialize new initiatives, professional development opportunities through a lunch-and-learn series for the staff, a wiki-like common language playbook of all the slang new employees need to know, and an integrated calendar providing everyone with easy-to-use access to all activities and events throughout GSUSA.

I also started a Toastmasters Club with the goal of elevating leadership and communication skills within GSUSA. The added benefit is that colleagues come together to connect with each other, hear each other’s stories, learn a bit more about what each of us does and the passion that brings us here. It helps each of us develop our skills and work more closely together, no matter what age we are, no matter our background.

An Age-Integrated Workforce

I work with a multigenerational team at Girl Scouts of the USA — some people have recently graduated college or business school and some are in their sixties or older. It’s very energizing to work in a multigenerational space where you feel like you’re not siloed into age groups and everyone brings the value of their perspective. It’s really just a great mix and an amazing way to work.

Learning

Through the Encore Fellowship, I learned that really the sky’s the limit, that I have so much more energy and so much more to give and so much more to learn. I learned that there’s so much more out in front of me, I just can’t even see the end of it.

Advice to Potential Encore Fellows

Just go for it. Fill out the application, explore the website. You never know where it’s going to take you. You’re going to learn things about yourself and new ways to translate the many skills you have developed over your career. Go in with the mindset of a servant leader and you will see that you will gain as much as you give. You’re going to learn how much energy you still have and how much you can still give to organizations that really need the skills that you’ve developed all your life.

Advice to Nonprofits Considering Hiring Encore Fellows

It’s amazing what extra things can be accomplished with an Encore Fellow. And with the right job description and the right Encore Fellow, it really can take you much further than you think in a short period of time. It’s a great way to enhance your capacity! We now budget for Encore Fellows™ every year. I was able to bring on three more Encore Fellows last year, and two of those roles have been converted to full-time positions.

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ELIZABETH KESSEL

Encore Fellow Profiles

ELIZABETH KESSEL

Others Trade for Hope

Elizabeth Kessel has over twenty years of experience in the marketing and public relations sector, having worked with a variety of clients in a wide range of industries. Recent assignments were with Beauty with a Mission and The Event Loft.

Originally from New York, she spent many years in Southern California raising her family and has returned to New York for the many exciting opportunities the city has to offer. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tulane University. Elizabeth will be starting the virtual part time 12 month fellowship with The Salvation Army, Others Trade for Hope.

She will be the Sales and Marketing Coordinator fellow focused on developing and implementing creative sales/marketing strategies; advising on new retail marketing; development of marketing campaigns for new and existing products, and brainstorming strategies to build strong brand recognition and engagement particularly among millennials and Gen Z. Elizabeth is excited and honored to begin her journey in the non-profit sector and to make a positive impact with Others Trade for Hope.

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EDGAR MAXION

Encore Fellow Profiles

EDGAR MAXION

Sunnyvale Community Services

Edgar Maxion spent more than 20 years working in facilities and construction management for renowned Bay Area institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Monterey History & Art Association. But after 12 years as Stanford’s chief facilities officer, he was drained.

“At the end I was juggling eight construction projects at once and I was kind of a mess,” Maxion, 53, confesses. “I wasn’t sleeping very well and my health was tanking.”

He left that job and spent time thinking about what he wanted to do next. “I called it my ‘I don’t know what’ phase,” he jokes. Maxion began volunteering for the Salvation Army in San Jose, giving out produce and helping to cook some evening meals.

A conversation with a career counselor led him to Encore Fellowships, a program that matches skilled, seasoned professionals with social sector organizations in high-impact, paid engagements lasting as long as a year. Shortly after filling out an online application, he grabbed coffee with Gina Cassinelli, who facilitates matches throughout the Bay Area.

“We talked for a long time,” he recalls, “and she understood that I didn’t want to go back to doing exactly what I’d been doing.”

But when Sunnyvale Community Services (SCS), an emergency assistance agency working to prevent hunger and homelessness, began searching for an Encore Fellow to manage the renovation of a multimillion dollar property they’d recently purchased, Cassinelli urged Maxion to meet with them.

Executive Director Marie Bernard “made it clear that while the job was construction project management, I would also be doing all these other things focused more on culture and change management,” he says. “That psychological part intrigued me.”

A month into his fellowship, the pandemic hit. Clients needed more help — and SCS employees needed a safe space to work.

Maxion rearranged space to account for social distancing. New signage was created, the HVAC was adjusted to bring in more air from outside, an intercom system was built, janitorial service frequency was increased, and personal protective equipment was procured.

With their facility secured, SCS workers have been able to distribute $900,000 in rent assistance to local residents so far — an increase of more than 200 percent over pre-pandemic times.

In July, Maxion was hired as a full-time employee to continue overseeing the new building renovation, which is expected to be complete by the spring of 2021. Right now, that means lots of time spent finding the right subcontractors, ordering furniture, and ensuring materials arrive on time in spite of delivery delays caused by the pandemic.

“Edgar’s asset and risk management knowledge became absolutely valuable when the pandemic hit hard,” says Hiroko Odaka, Maxion’s manager and SCS’s director of operations. “He led the agency-level efforts of both physical and policy modifications to comply with Santa Clara County Covid-19 protocol. We are very lucky to have him with us.”

Maxion feels lucky, too. “I was so done with my career,” he says. “I had fear that I was over the hill, and it started to weigh heavy on me. But being at SCS and seeing how much they value my skills, and all of the trust they have in me, I feel re-energized. It’s been a confidence-building experience.”

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CARRIE KNAPP

Encore Fellow Profiles

CARRIE KNAPP

Impact Justice

“I knew when I stopped working full time that I wanted to use my skills to benefit an organization doing good work,” says Carrie Knapp, 60, an HR professional who has since completed two Encore Fellowships.

Knapp worked for 30+ years, mostly at Wells Fargo, building expertise in strategic project planning, management and implementation. She heard about Encore Fellowships — short-term, high-impact, paid engagements at nonprofits — from a friend who had a positive experience.

“I care a lot about education and issues around inequity, racial disparity and economic injustice,” says Knapp. “My first Encore Fellowship was with College Track, and my second was with Impact Justice. With both organizations, I stayed on for a second year to work with the teams as a consultant.”

Impact Justice is a national innovation and research center that focuses on creating a more humane, restorative system of justice in the United States. Knapp’s first task: to create a job structure including standard job titles, job descriptions and a salary structure to support equity and ensure everyone at the organization understood roles, responsibilities and compensation.

She then shifted gears to rewrite the employee handbook. “That meant writing a lot of new policies that didn’t yet exist, but were needed.” Most recently, she’s been working on developing a more robust approach to performance management.

“All of my work for Impact Justice has been an incredible opportunity to go very deep with the leadership team and help them to articulate their values and to get aligned,” Knapp says. “I think sometimes HR work can be approached superficially, but that’s just not who I am. When I’m tasked with creating a compensation plan, I work with leadership to understand their values and philosophy to ensure that plan is a good reflection of the values of the organization and what they want to communicate to employees.”

Maureen Vittoria, the chief operating officer at Impact Justice, says having Knapp on the team has been invaluable. “She led our compensation philosophy work and the creation of equitable job and pay structures, our compensation and pay administration practices, and the refinement of our performance management process and our employee policies.”

It adds up to this, Vittoria says: “[Knapp] has been an integral part of Impact Justice’s maturity as an organization.”

Knapp says having meaningful work to focus on during a time of global unrest has been helpful. “To have something to do, so I’m not sitting around and just reading the news, is good for my mental health, for sure,” she says. “Supporting organizations doing good in the world is a wonderful thing. Plus, I get a bit antsy without a challenge.”

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TIM CARPENTER

Encore Host Organizations

TIM CARPENTER

EngAGE

Tim Carpenter started EngAGE twenty years ago to create community and change lives by transforming affordable senior and multigenerational housing communities into vibrant centers of learning, wellness, and creativity. The EngAGE mission is to empower people – intellectually, creatively, and emotionally – to do what they do best for the rest of their lives.

The organization now runs lifelong learning programs in forty-seven communities in three states, reaching over 6,000 seniors and several hundred families in multigenerational housing.

As the organization continued to grow, Tim realized he needed a strategic plan. He reached out to the Encore Fellowships LA director who provided three candidates, and one, Michael Dowlan was the perfect fit. “It was instantaneous…as soon as we met Michael, we knew he was a match because of his background, skills, and interest in aging. Even in our first meeting, his level of preparation was apparent, and he’d already thought the process through.”

As someone who originally worked in the private sector, Tim was open to applying business strategic planning to the non-profit sector. “But experiencing Michael’s high-end private sector experience was the big ‘Wow’ for us. Michael spent a lot of time talking to me and my people, listening to our ideas and connecting us to the process to take ownership. He had my total buy-in—any moments where people said they did not have time, I said, ‘You have to find time; it’s an organizational priority.’ However, it was Michael’s ability to develop the relationships and personalize the process to the team which made it successful.”

The team spent hours whittling down 600 ideas to 33 distinct goals and designing a roadmap. “Michael also created an amazing implementation tool to track it…I would not have come up with this tool in a million years—none of us had the skill.”

Michael helped develop the vision for growth, but also focused on what the organization needed to do, in terms of infrastructure, staffing and capacity. “He helped us on two tracks; we solved not just where we are going, but how are we going to get there. I also had a gut feeling that I needed to change my role based on what I do well and like to do. Michael helped me figure out my own personal journey in terms of a succession plan and my role. I can see the path to that now. We have a plan. I can change what I do, and how I do it, but still be with the organization.”

Tim sums up, “Ultimately, Michael’s work was beyond my expectations—it stopped being, ‘Someday, something is going to happen’ to ‘Let’s look at it and plan.’ Michael has become such an important person to us that our staff and board have said they’d like to keep him around. We are looking at that.”

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REID COX

Encore Host Organizations

Reid Cox

iFoster

Reid Cox started iFoster over 10 years ago with his wife, Sarita, working out of their office in Truckee, California. “My wife was raised in the foster care system,” Reid shares, “and we felt that we could have the biggest impact by finding new ways to get more resources to foster youth, families, social workers and nonprofits working in this space.”

Outcomes often reflect his lack of investment. Findings from a 2016 California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study show that within four years of aging out of the system, about 70 percent of foster youth receive government assistance, and 50 percent are unemployed.

iFoster forms partnerships with companies, local businesses and nonprofits to negotiate low-cost purchases of items foster youth need, like laptops, and works with foundations and companies willing to donate products and services to foster youth across the country.

Marketing was a competency the organization didn’t have, and was actively seeking. “We’ve been so focused on doing the day-to-day blocking and tackling to get these kids what they need,” Reid says. “We brought Marc in to help us take a step back, and think about how we should be communicating what iFoster is doing, to set us up as the leading voice in providing resources to these kids.”

The Encore Fellowship experience was so positive for both parties that they’ve decided to continue working together, which happens with about half of all fellowships.

“For the first nine years, we didn’t spend any money on general audience advertising,” he says. “That was the beauty of Marc and the Encore Fellowship program. We could bring someone in who has a lifetime of experience in this area, and go from zero to where we are today in just a year.”

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PATTY MACHIR

Encore Host Organizations

PATTY MACHIR

Futures and Options

Futures and Options empowers New York City’s underserved youth to explore careers through career development and paid, mentored internships. During David Pfeifer’s Encore Fellowship, he pitched in on any project required. When his Fellowship ended in September, he accepted a full-time job as Operations Manager.

“We hired him because he is the best person for the job,” says Patty Machir, executive director. “David’s prior experience in the for-profit world as a COO, CFO and CEO has been immensely helpful and, because of his efforts and contributions, we are a much better-managed nonprofit.”

Machir adds, “His ability to communicate effectively with our team, his respectfulness, his integrity and his terrific sense of humor are all much appreciated. And he will roll up his sleeves to tackle any project — he just gets it done.”

Visit the Futures and Options website

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PATRICIA WYATT

Encore Host Organizations

PATRICIA WYATT

Japanese American Cultural and Community Center

“People are thinking about their financial situation now more than ever,” says David Derryck, the Chief Impact Officer of SaverLife — a nonprofit that provides incentives and resources to help low- and middle-income Americans save money and build financial security.

When Patricia Wyatt joined the organization, she realized that the financial systems did not serve her vision for successfully managing the organization for growth and future success. Previously, financial management had been outsourced, but she determined she needed an internal resource to bring clarity and focus to the financial structure. Familiar with Encore Fellowships from a prior position, she knew that the opportunity to bring on a seasoned professional, at below market rates and within her limited budget, was the answer to her needs.

Upon seeing Emily Bernhardt’s fellow application, with her years of senior financial experience, many in other nonprofit organizations, Pat recognized that she was a perfect fit for a new visionary financial leader.

Emily restructured and revamped all processes, systems, reports, and analytics so that Pat had a granular view into the organization and its programs’ strengths and shortcomings. She created financial reports that told stories and focused management efforts on areas that were catalysts to growth. She worked with grant-writers to help them interpret the financial stories and historical information to create powerful proposals to grant organizations.

“Because these grant organizations could see that JACCC had a deep understanding of its financials and budget, they had confidence in the ability of JACCC to translate vision into effective programs that thrive,” Patricia explains. Emily’s efforts resulted in a 300% increase in foundation grants including a $2 million grant (the highest amount awarded from a consortium of foundations, The LA Arts Recovery Fund). In addition, JACCC was named as one of America’s cultural treasures by the Ford Foundation.

Pat states “Emily is an example of the catalytic impact a Fellow can have.” Emily has accepted the position of CFO of the organization.

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