Community Wealth Ventures: Our Team

In 1997, Bill Shore founded Community Wealth Ventures (CWV), Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength, one of the nation’s leading anti-hunger and anti-poverty organizations. Since its founding, Share Our Strength has raised more than $190 million to support more than 1,000 anti-hunger, anti-poverty groups worldwide.

From 1978 through 1987, Bill served on the senatorial and presidential campaign staffs of U.S. Senator Gary Hart (D-Colo.) From 1988 to 1991, Bill served as chief of staff for U.S. Senator Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) His transition from politics to innovative community service and his prescription for community change are documented in his first book Revolution of the Heart (Riverhead Press, 1995). Bill’s second book, The Cathedral Within (Random House, 1999) profiles a new breed of community leaders who are tapping every sector of society to improve community life. Bill’s most recent book, The Light of Conscience, published in February of 2004, explores how acts of conscience can and have changed the world.

Bill earned his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of The Timberland Company, City Year, College Summit, and Venture Philanthropy Partners. Bill teaches a class on social entrepreneurship at New York University’s Stern School of Business as an adjunct professor and has been a guest lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. In October 2005, US News & World Report selected Bill as one of America's Best Leaders.

As a Managing Director at Community Wealth Ventures, Amy Celep oversees the sales, marketing and implementation of the firm’s Community Wealth Collaboratives—ten-month venture development projects aimed at assisting nonprofits in developing earned income business ventures. Since joining CWV in 2002, Amy has worked with both nonprofit and foundation clients, including developing a multi-year international social enterprise initiative for a corporate foundation, growing a temporary staffing agency housed within a large job training organization, and formulating corporate partnership development strategies on behalf of clients.

Amy joined CWV after serving as a resource development professional for an international development nonprofit where she secured corporate and foundation gifts. She also worked as a television news producer for a CBS affiliate, where she designed and launched a new morning program and served as the producer for the station’s award-winning evening news.

Amy received her MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and earned a B.S. in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

In her role as Senior Consultant at CWV, Sara Brenner leads nonprofits through the development of business plans, and the implementation of social enterprise businesses. Her work has involved advising and supporting the implementation of a potential multimillion dollar healthcare disease management business. Sara has also helped clients evaluate the feasibility of business opportunities and secure corporate partnerships to fuel the growth of their emerging businesses. In addition to working for clients, Sara created a firm-wide evaluation system for CWV to improve the firm’s performance management and outcomes tracking. Sara currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Thyroid Cancer Survivors’ Association where she is responsible for spearheading the organization’s strategic plan and expanding the organization’s support network domestically and internationally.

Prior to joining CWV, Sara worked as a lead consultant with The Gallup Organization where she advised the largest health systems in the country on strategic priorities and worked with a federal government agency to develop a strategic plan for new programs. Sara also directed research in Gallup’s healthcare polling division, and presented Medicaid findings at the Center for Health Transformation’s 2nd Annual Medicaid conference. Previously, Sara worked as a Director with the Advisory Board Company, overseeing the delivery of best practice research and consulting advice to 500 clients in the areas of strategic planning, product development, marketing and market research, human capital and operations.

Sara received her MBA from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and earned a B.A. with distinction in History and History of Culture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As a Senior Consultant at CWV, Alysia Johnson Fullen has lead nonprofits in Newark, New Jersey through the firm’s ten-month Collaborative business planning process. She has also developed social enterprise business plans for numerous nonprofit clients and conducted research on the social enterprise movement. Prior to joining CWV, she worked with IBM Global Business Services as a management consultant. At IBM, she focused on performance tracking, management and evaluation systems and the design and delivery of adult learning training programs, serving clients such as U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Department of State. She has also worked with nonprofits including the National Albanian American’s Hope Fellowship Program and Georgetown University’s Center for Intercultural Education and Development.

Alysia holds a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and a MS in Local Economic Development from the London School of Economics. She served as a Small Business Development Peace Corps Volunteer in Boaco, Nicaragua.

Prior to joining Community Wealth Ventures, Nicole Hanrahan was the Executive Director of Regulatory Reform for the Governor of Illinois, where she made regulatory improvements for business, including speeding the turn around time for professional licenses by 400%.

Nicole has spent the majority of her career working in the nonprofit sector. After completing her MBA, she ran a workforce and small business development program to help urban entrepreneurs in the food industry and directed research and strategic planning for the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, a 129-year old, Boston-based women’s economic development organization. Before business school, Nicole was the Director of Project Renewal’s Next Step Program, which helps homeless people in New York obtain education, training and jobs.

Nicole holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BA in Public Policy from Brown University.

Stephanie Norwell has a broad range of experience in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. Prior to joining CWV, Stephanie worked at the Corporate Executive Board, where she assisted senior-level executives with strategic decision-making and managed a portfolio of web-based tools. Previously, Stephanie was a consultant with Capital Performance Group. In that role, she assisted organizations of all sizes with strategic planning, business performance analysis, competitive assessments, financial forecasting, and scorecard development. Stephanie also has worked for the Federal Reserve and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In her personal time, she has been involved with Girls on the Run-a running and educational program focused on adolescent girls-since 1999. Currently, she is the Board President of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia.

As a Senior Consultant with the Nonprofit Services practice, Diana Peacock leads individual client engagements to develop growth strategies for existing ventures, assess new business opportunities, and craft business plans for mission-related programs. Since joining CWV almost two years ago, she has worked with organizations that represent such diverse mission areas as: youth development, leadership development, safety awareness, arts education for youth, health services for people with disabilities, economic development and microfinance. Project work has included customer analysis, feasibility studies for new ventures, business planning, financial modeling, organizational design, growth strategy formulation, funding and partnership pitch development, and corporate partnership strategy formulation.

Diana joined CWV with consulting experience in the nonprofit, corporate and public sectors. Across industries and sectors, her work has focused heavily on customer relationship management. As a consultant with Accenture she worked for start-up, middle-market and Fortune 500 companies clients on a range of business problems from program management and business process definition to strategic systems planning and business case development. She has also consulted with nonprofit arts organizations on organizational design, marketing planning and festival production, as well as the Department of Homeland Security on business process re-engineering. Diana graduated at the top of her class with a M.A. in Arts Administration from Meadows School of the Arts and MBA from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. She received her B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude, from Wake Forest University.

Heather Peeler blends more than ten years of experience in the nonprofit sector with years in management consulting. She has worked in a variety of fields including the arts, publishing, health care, and philanthropy. Prior to joining CWV, she was a senior associate at Innovation Network, where she oversaw business development, public relations, marketing and new product development for a consulting firm serving nonprofits and foundations. Prior to joining Innovation Network, Heather served as the Managing Editor for Foundation News & Commentary, the flagship publication of the Council on Foundations, where she oversaw the magazine's circulation and advertising programs and wrote features and organizational profiles.

After receiving an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, Heather was the Executive Director of Small Press Distribution, a nonprofit located in Berkeley, CA that provides distribution services for independent literary publishers. While living in the Bay Area, she co-founded GenArt/SF, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to increasing young people's participation in the visual arts.

As a Senior Consultant, Tanya Smith-Evans has assisted nonprofit organizations in their pursuits to become more efficient and self-sustaining through group planning processes that assist organizations generate and increase business venture revenues and through individualized consulting engagements that identity and craft distinctive business solutions.

Tanya has lead two 10-month group Collaborative business planning processes in Boston, Massachusetts and San Antonio, Texas. She is currently leading a new 10-month Collaborative in the Greater Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky market. Tanya developed the initial curriculum and subsequently led a 6-month group workshop series process in Tyler, Texas.

Prior to joining CWV, Tanya worked as a consultant with A.T. Kearney for 10 years, in the Chicago, Illinois and Alexandria, Virginia offices. She was responsible for developing project strategies and leading client and consulting teams to strategic and operational improvements. Her clients ranged from top Fortune 50 companies to museums and other nonprofits.

Tanya graduated from the University of Virginia with a BS in Commerce with concentrations in marketing and management and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Doug Sudell joined SFV shortly after its launch in 2006. His background is a unique fusion of franchise and nonprofit experience. Doug is a Certified Franchise Executive and spent over four years as a Field Consultant in the Subway organization, providing support for franchisees in and around New York City. He supported over 50 new store openings and has worked with Subway headquarters on training and support development initiatives.

Most recently Doug was the Deputy Director of Economic Development for St. Nicolas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation, a Brooklyn, New York based nonprofit with an annual budget in excess of $30M. He was responsible for managing the Entrepreneurial Assistance Program which provided hundreds of local small businesses with various aspects of business and technical support.

After completing his undergraduate degree in Business Administration, at the University of Connecticut, Doug spent two years as an Economic Development Volunteer for the United States Peace Corps in Honduras, Central America. He holds a Master in Public Administration degree from New York University, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Coleen Curry serves as the Co-Director of Social Franchise Ventures. In her role, she works with SFV nonprofit clients to understand their organizational assets and goals and develop franchise recommendations. She has been with CWV since 2003, working on multiple social enterprise projects for nonprofit and corporate clients. She has helped clients research and build businesses in the fields of property management, computer software, and financial services.

Prior to joining CWV, Coleen was a management consultant at A.T. Kearney, serving Fortune 50 clients in the retail, technology, pharmaceutical, and foodservice industries. Coleen developed a business model for a new healthcare product, implemented new business processes, and designed pricing and product portfolio strategies. Coleen also has nonprofit experience as a manager at Who Cares, Inc., an organization that published a magazine on best practices in the nonprofit sector.

Coleen holds a BA from Colgate University and an MBA from the University of Virginia.

Becky Eisen has been with the Social Franchise Ventures team since April of 2007 after serving as professional intern and short term problem solver for a variety of organizations including: Ashoka—Innovators for the Public, Grassroots Campaigns Inc. and Technoserve. At SFV Becky performs in-depth market research to determine who would make the best franchise partner for an SFV client. She uses her strengths as an excellent editor, a strong communicator and a grounded idealist to facilitate comfortable client interactions and to contribute to overall team output.

Becky graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan with a BA in Organizational Studies. As a student, she was instrumental in the launching of the first undergraduate conference on Corporate Social Responsibility, which brought corporate and non-profit leaders to campus to discuss issues with students and faculty related to corporate responsibility. She is a StartingBloc Fellow and is passionate about pursuing innovative methods of catalyzing positive social change.

Dan Elitzer an Associate at Social Franchise Ventures, has been with the firm since March of 2007. Dan is responsible for assisting in the development of strategies that leverage the assets of SFV’s nonprofit clients to launch successful franchise businesses. To this end, he engages in local market and broad industry research, identifies top performing franchisors, and collects and analyzes data from both franchisors and franchisees to develop detailed understandings of their business models and organizational culture.

Prior to joining SFV, Dan completed internships and short-term placements at Ashoka—Innovators for the Public, Tennessee Citizen Action (a USAction affiliate), and the Boston Consulting Group. Dan holds a BA in Psychology from Pomona College.

Meghan Kappus comes to CWV with a background in marketing, promotions, and business development. Prior to joining CWV, Meghan served as a Marketing Coordinator for Huthwaite, Inc., a leading sales performance improvement company. At CWV, she provides strategic support to the nonprofit organizations participating in the Community Wealth Collaboratives.

Meghan graduated Magna Cum Laude from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Economics and Management, focusing on Marketing and Communication.

Ashlee Miller is a Senior Associate with CWV’s Nonprofit Services practice. In this capacity, she provides research support and strategic guidance to a variety of nonprofit clients on both earned income and programmatic opportunities. Among other work, Ashlee has conducted strategic planning for new business models and corporate partnerships for nonprofits with youth development, home safety, microfinance and anti-hunger related missions.

Prior to joining CWV, Ashlee served as Account Director with the Corporate Executive Board, a leading management research and executive education firm. In this role, she provided Fortune 500/Global 3000 business executives with guidance in the areas of organizational design, operational strategy, corporate governance, and performance measurement.

Ashlee graduated from Wake Forest University with a Bachelor of Science in General Business.

At CWV, Christina Ng has worked on projects to create new business ventures as well as on strategies to expand existing enterprises in industries ranging from thrift and restaurants to information services and electronic philanthropy. In addition, Christina provides strategic support to the nonprofit organizations participating in the Community Wealth Collaboratives.

Christina graduated cum laude from Duke University with a BA in Public Policy Studies, focusing on nonprofit organizations and community development, and a minor in Economics. She comes to CWV with experience in public affairs and strategic communications consulting.

Brittany Vasseur comes to CWV’s Venture Consulting Practice with a background in social innovation, non-profit operations, market research and business. Brittany has worked in research roles at several non-profits and at a U.S. Government foreign aid reform commission. Most recently, she worked as an Associate on the Venture team at Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, identifying leading social entrepreneurs in Africa. An avid traveler, Brittany has led community development projects in the Philippines and Senegal.

Brittany graduated Cum Laude from the George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and a double concentration in Development and Economics.