SPEAKER BIOS
Father Tom McKenna, CM
Welcome back to the Table
If you attended the 2015 Grantee Renewal Conference, you may remember Father Tom on opening day with a session on Spirituality in the Workforce. During this conference, Fr. Tom will review key points of the 2015 Grantee Renewal Conference, further define Systemic Change and show the importance of Community Engagement in efforts toward Systemic Change and Collective Impact.
The Rev. Thomas F. McKenna, C.M., a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., was ordained in 1970, he received a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy from St. John’s University in 1973 and earned a Doctorate in Systematic Theology from the Catholic University of America in 1982. For 10 years, Father McKenna taught spirituality as a member of the department of theology at St. John’s. He has also taught at Tangaza College in Nairobi, Kenya. Father McKenna was a former Provincial Superior of the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission. He is the author of several articles that have been published in theological journals and has written one book, titled “Praying with Vincent de Paul,” a series of meditations on Vincent’s spirituality. He is presently working with the St. Louise Province of Daughters of Charity at their St. Louis headquarters.
Mr. James Emrich
Strategic Leadership with Compassion: Infusing Mission With Vision & Spirit
Jim will present a strategic leadership framework using as a case example a school he helped to found which now serves 600 children in Chester, PA.
Jim Emrich has forty-four years of experience in the fields of general management, corporate finance, leadership development and organizational behavior. Jim's professional responsibilities have included CFO of a multi entity not-for-profit health care chain; Presidential Exchange Executive serving in the Department of Health and Human Services; Senior management at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of a privately held enterprise which provided organizational consulting services and marketed employee assistance programs.
Jim's undergraduate degree is from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce with a concentration in corporate finance and his graduate degree in hospital administration is from the University of California, Berkeley. He has held adjunct faculty appointments at both the Universities of Pennsylvania and California and Bethel Seminary of the East.
During his career, Jim has served on 23 boards, both for-profit and not-for-profit and has a particular interest in trustee governance. He is a Lilly Endowment Trustee Educator.
In 1991, Jim established a consulting practice grounded in the discipline of servant-leadership. His client engagements have been with a variety of enterprises including for-profit firms such as Teleflex, Inc., The Bank of Montreal, The Wilmington Savings Fund Society and Morgan Stanley-Dean Witter; ECONET; religious enterprises such as McCormick Seminary, The Sisters of Charity in New York, the Sisters of Mercy in St. Louis and Sojourners/Call to Renewal; not-for-profit enterprises such as Elwyn, Inc., Leadership Oklahoma and The Hyde School; and peace and justice organizations such as the Center for Ethical Leadership, The Special Olympics World Games and the Martin Luther King Center. He has also been active for many years in a small action research group that is endeavoring to develop a practical theology of institutions which can be used in the workplace.
In preparation for his session, Jim is asking you to do a little work of inner discovery by taking a confidential personal values survey. The Personal Values Assessment is a simple survey that takes just a few minutes of your time and provides a wealth of information about why you do what you do.
He would also ask if you would consider some reading in advance:
First, ponder a story about a master woodcarver and how he was present to his own spirit and the spirit of the work he was ordered to do.
Second, read this short monograph by my dear friend, Parker Palmer. It concludes with this paragraph, “I know that many of you are on this journey toward leading from within. I’m grateful for your companionship, and I wish you blessings and power as you continue this work of inner discovery and leadership in your own lives."
Mr. Paul Schmitz
We All Have a Role to Play
Paul will lead an interactive workshop on the strategy, leadership culture, and community engagement necessary for collective impact efforts that create systemic, population level change.
Paul Schmitz is the CEO of Leading Inside Out, which advances strategies that develop authentic, inclusive, and collaborative leadership; engages community members as partners in solving community problems; and help diverse leaders and groups achieve greater impact together. Paul also serves as Senior Advisor to The Collective Impact Forum, a partnership of FSG and The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions, and the first Innovation Fellow at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Innovation
and Impact.
Paul is the author of Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up (Jossey Bass, 2011). The book is based on lessons learned from 21 years leading Public Allies, an innovative leadership development program that helped more than 5,000 diverse young adults across the country turn their passions to make a difference into careers as leaders working for community and social change.
Paul is a faculty member of The Asset-Based Community Development Institute; a board member of The Corps Network, Independent Sector, the NYU Leadership Initiative, Playworks, and The United Way of Greater Milwaukee. He is the former cochair of Voices for National Service, which led advocacy for AmeriCorps and other national service programs. Paul co-chaired the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign’s Civic Engagement Policy Group, was a member of The Obama-Biden Transition Team, and was appointed by President Obama to The White House Council for Community Solutions.
An honors graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Paul received their Graduate of the Last Decade Alumni award. He has also been recognized by The Rockefeller Foundation as a Next Generation Leadership Fellow, by the Nonprofit Times three separate years as one of the 50 most influential nonprofit leaders in America, and by Fast Company Magazine with their Social Capitalist Award for innovation. He lives in Milwaukee with his partner and five children.
Paul's book will be available for sale at the conference, or you can purchase here. Time will be provided at the conference for book signings.
Sister Marge Clifford, DC
Evaluating your Project
At the 2015 Grantee Renewal Conference, Sister Marge provided a short introductory session on Grant Writing. For the 2017 conference, she will dive deeper into grant writing with a focus on setting goals and objectives with measurable outcomes.
Sister Margaret Marie (Marge) Clifford, D.C. has over 20 years of experience in Advancement. She is currently working at the Vincentian Family Office in Philadelphia, PA. There she creates international and national advancement initiatives to grow the Vincentian Family awareness and relationships, including Wise Assets Management workshops internationally and Project management. Prior to her ministry with the Vincentian Family Office, Sister Marge worked in various ministries providing her advancement services in the areas of planning; research; writing; submission; evaluation; mentoring and teaching; and special events at the local, national and international levels.
Dr. Donna Beegle
Breaking the Iron Cage of Poverty
Donna will provide a poverty knowledge base necessary for improving outcomes in your community. Participants will gain tools for understanding how the many different life experiences of poverty impact success and what they can do to improve outcomes. Donna will also share examples from multiple communities who are implementing proven strategies and having success in removing poverty-related obstacles.
Dr. Donna Beegle inspires and educates individuals, organizations, politicians and entire communities with proven models to better outcomes for people in poverty. Born into a migrant labor family and married at 15, Dr. Beegle is the only member of her family who has not been incarcerated. By age 25, she earned her GED and then, within 10 years, received her doctorate in Educational Leadership. She is an authentic voice from poverty that speaks, writes and trains across the nation to break the iron cage of poverty for others through services provided by her company, Communication Across Barriers (CAB). For more than 25 years, she has traveled throughout hundreds of cities in 47 states and four countries to assist professionals with proven strategies for breaking poverty barriers. State agencies, politicians and other organizations have partnered with her to implement community-wide approaches to improving outcomes for citizens in poverty.
Dr. Beegle’s inspiring story of moving from 28 years of homelessness to achieving a doctorate and her groundbreaking work assisting people to move out of poverty has been featured on the internet, in newspapers, and on television around the nation. She is presently completing a PBS documentary with award-winning producer, George Rivera and was featured on CNN in The Other America segment. Dr. Beegle has received numerous awards (i.e. National Speaker of the year for the New Mexico Bar Foundation and the Oregon Ethics in Business award). In 2013 Donna was named Woman of Influence by the Portland Business Journal and received the Orchid Award which honors women who are compelling, affect change and represent their positions with strength, wisdom and grace. Just recently, Dr. Beegle was named a prestigious Woodrow Wilson Princeton Fellow through their Office of Governmental Relations.
Donna's book See Poverty ... Be the Difference: Discover the Missing Pieces for Working with People in Poverty will be available for sale at the conference, or you can purchase here. Time will be provided at the conference for book signings.