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Jul 8, 2015
Posted Under: President's letter

laurie websiteHello everyone. Thank you. I want to start my first communication with you by giving thanks because as I assume my new role as Foraker’s President and CEO, my heart is full of gratitude and my head is full of ideas. From the moment my selection was announced, the outpouring of support and ideas that came from so many of you has been incredible. I am listening.

Succession in any organization can be a challenge, but the challenge is often not just relegated to the hiring of the new staff leader – it’s also all the other changes that can come alongside this shift. During this time of transition, I know my job is to focus on what is open for change and what should never change. If you have been following our transition, you might know that our Governance Board went through a rigorous process to understand what change meant to them before embarking on their succession process. What was abundantly clear as they vetted more than 50 applicants, and as I engaged in roughly seven hours of interviews, was that they believed in the core purpose and values of Foraker – that was not open for change. For this, I celebrate. Foraker is in a solid place. We know who we are. We are firmly rooted in our purpose and values. Can we always find more ways to express them? Absolutely. Will we reflect on them with every major decision? There is no doubt. But the fundamentals of who we are will stand true. To honor our tradition and celebrate the gifts that Dennis McMillian brought as a founder, we are inscribing what our values mean to us on the hallway of our Foraker office. This hallway connects our training room with our boardroom and will serve as a constant reminder that the decisions we make in our board and staff meetings will have a lasting impact on the interactions we have with each of you. For this I am grateful.

So today is a new day, but not unlike all the days before that I have come to Foraker to do my work. For 14 years I have said that I love what I do – today is no different. The people, the causes, the communities – everyday has been a new day of learning, sharing, and facilitating – and that will not change. Many people that I have had the pleasure to work with have asked if I will still be able to work one-on-one with organizations, and others have asked me about my commitment to teaching in our educational programs. Thankfully, our business model has always meant that while I have an important job of leading Foraker internally, my external responsibilities remain intact. Hopefully as the transition settles, I will be able to do even more work with all of you. What has always allowed for this business model is our excellent team of staff and consultants. They each do a tremendous job strengthening the sector and Foraker.

My transition also brought another question – how would my current job duties be covered? I had a number of scenarios in my head as I accepted the position. I could not have asked for a clearer sign of support from the staff when several of them came forward and asked to increase their roles in our work. As a capacity building organization, it is my belief that we must also strengthen our own performance – so I welcomed the requests. As a result, you’ll see a few changes to our existing team and a few new additions to help us better serve the sector. Please help me in welcoming these staff to their new responsibilities:

  • Raju Shankar has become Vice President as well as CFO. In this position, Raj will assume oversight of all things “paper and money.” Raj has great ideas every day about how we can do our work more efficiently, but ironically his past workload never fully allowed him to implement his ideas. Today is the day. What you will notice in the coming years is simply more service as we continue to refine our business model and practices. Raj will continue to oversee our Financial Shared Services program but he will shift some of his direct client responsibilities. This shift means that he will be available to help with some of the strategic challenges facing many of our Partners. Raj will also assume responsibility for Sultana, which houses our fiscal sponsorship and shared employment relationships. Raj will work closely with our whole team and especially with Rebecca Savidis, our HR Director on Sultana. Rebecca is working, too, to expand our Human Resources Shared Services program.
  • Andrew Cutting, our Director of Nonprofit Research and Partnerships, will move to full-time and join our leadership team. Andrew has truly found his calling in his work with Partners and data. The combination means we can provide more services to you as you define what data truly matters the most to measure the work in your communities. We will be rolling out new services in data research, theory of change, and dashboard development while we stay committed to our own research on the economic impact of the sector and the salary and benefit levels in Alaska nonprofits.
  • Heather Harris is one of our Lead Capacity Builders and is transitioning to more direct support of organizations with a focus on board facilitation, collaboration, and coaching. Heather will also expand her support for executive directors beyond the current cohort of new professionals in the field when she takes on the oversight of our ED Mentoring program, the Interim Executive Director program and Foraker’s support of the Rasmuson Sabbatical program. She will continue as the leader of our New Pathways Alaska arts innovation program. Maura Wharton, our office assistant, will manage the logistics for the New Pathways Alaska program, under Heather’s guidance. As a recent music graduate from UAA and a singer in the Anchorage Opera, Maura is well suited for these additional responsibilities in our arts program.
  • Jonella Larson White, Ququngaq, will also be one of our Lead Capacity Builders and will continue in her transition to more direct support of organizations while emphasizing her work in rural communities and with tribes throughout Alaska. Shifting Jonella’s title from Rural Specialist is recognition that everyone at Foraker embraces and lives our core value of Urban-Rural-Native-nonNative. Jonella’s knowledge, life experience and identity clearly inform her capacity building work at Foraker.
  • As we said from the beginning of this transition, Dennis McMillian is not retiring. I am pleased to say he will be staying on with us part-time and will focus his incredible skills working one-on-one with organizations. We have promised him a much-deserved slower pace. Dennis will not be working in the office, but we will remain his point-of-contact for scheduling and information. Dennis will also continue to teach in the Certificate in Nonprofit Management program.
  • Mike Walsh, Vice President/Director of Public Policy, has been a stalwart member of our team for more than a decade. He brings a strong set of skills and truly loves his work. Mike’s focus will continue to be working one-on-one with organizations and providing educational programming primarily in the areas of board governance, as well as strategic, business and advocacy planning. Mike shines in his commitment to public policy. While I will take on a much larger role in this area given the state of the state and the need for the sector to have an even more amplified voice, Mike is our resident expert and connector. He knows public policy and is deeply connected to the internal structures that make policy effective. There is plenty of work to do as we increase our presence as Alaska’s state association, and Mike is just the person to help us strengthen our individual and collective voice.
  • Kate O’Brien, our Communication and Education Manager, will be jumping into the strategic side of our communications and educational programming. With advances in technology there are so many ways we can grow while still staying committed to our strength of in-person connection. Kate will explore more ways for us to do both with adult education science at the core of those decisions. Kate comes with many strong skills and we look forward to supporting her as she enhances our educational outreach and communications.
  • Kathryn Knowles is also assuming more responsibilities in our Financial Shared Services program. Kathryn is now a Project Accountant and is providing additional capacity for us to expand our Financial Shared Services program to more nonprofits across Alaska. 
  • The rest of our team is strongly focused on the great service they provide to each of you every day. The changes noted above can all occur because of the strong foundation that our Financial Shared Services team of Gretchen Specht, Malu Antonio, Brent Kapansky, and Miranda Soule, and our Pre-Development team of Chris Kowalczeski, Pam Lund, and Carly Butcher provide for Foraker.
  • We also added a member to our family on July 1. Please help me welcome one of our finance consultants to our full-time staff as an additional Lead Capacity Builder with a finance emphasis. Chellie Skoog has been with us in a consulting capacity for a few years. In that time she has been referred to as the financial Mary Poppins – she will tell you the hard financial truth with a spoon full of sugar. Chellie has been an innovative spark in the nonprofit sector for a long time. When we met her she was helping to found the Seward Community Foundation affiliate of the Alaska Community Foundation and raising funds for the Seward Community Library Museum. Since then, she has eagerly made an impact on many other nonprofits in Seward, became a graduate of our Catalyst for Excellence program, and a graduate of Leadership Anchorage where she also spearheaded the creation of an alumni council. We knew Chellie was a perfect fit for us the day we heard her describe our theory of change to a group of her peers without even knowing she was doing it. Chellie will work internally with our Financial Shared Services team and will increase her one-on-one work with Foraker Partners in the areas of financial accounting and with the financial side of business planning and scenario planning.
  • The final addition to our team is a new consultant in the area of charitable giving. Please welcome Nora Ortiz Fredrick to our consulting team. When we met Nora many years ago, she was part of the Archdiocese of Anchorage team in charge of fund development for all the Catholic schools in the state. Since then Nora has led a successful independent consultancy working with a wide area of sub-sectors and helping faith organizations become strategic and relationship-focused in their fund development efforts. Nora is an active member of AFP and has her CFRE credential. She has been volunteering on our board task force that is focused on the revolving door of Alaska development professionals and we have enjoyed her thoughtful approach to this work. I am particularly pleased to welcome Nora to the team because the demand is increasing for more strategic fund development that focuses on building a positive culture of philanthropy for individual donors. This is great news for our sector and our state.

Today, this is our team. I am thankful. We are building from within and growing new capacity. During my work with the Rasmuson Sabbatical program, we often talk about staff and board taking the window of a sabbatical to step in and step up. This is a gift of change – an opportunity for each of us to dream a little and think about what would make our work days more meaningful, where our interests can take us, and where the opportunities for growth lay. You don’t need a big transition in your organization to ask these questions. We have walked alongside many of you in the Certificate and Catalyst programs as you ask these questions. We have facilitated board and staff retreats where the question of change is at the heart of each meeting. In fact, as I reflect on all of Foraker’s many services, change is where we do most of our work with you and your organizations. While we might each be experiencing change as individuals, our organization, our sector and our state are undergoing change as well. The collective work necessary right now is monumental. Our sector is part of the solution and action is required. Change is necessary. As part of my new role to embrace transition, I will be traveling throughout the state to meet with you and other leaders in your community. Let’s connect. I’m curious, what will change look like for you?