Who We Are
Send us your Feedback
The Social Impact Exchange was launched by the Growth Philanthropy Network (GPN), in partnership with Duke University - Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society (CSPCS) and its Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE). Together, these organizations are supporting the development of the Exchange.
Growth Philanthropy Network
- Alexander Rossides – President
- Jennifer Agmi – Nonprofit Analyst
- Karen Epstein – Vice President
- Simon Jawitz - Executive Advisor
- Nicole Kindred – Program and Administrative Coordinator
- Cynthia Massarsky – Vice President and Director, Social Impact Exchange
- Janice Schoos –Senior Director, Strategic Engagement
- Tamara Schweitzer Raben - Knowledge Management Associate
Duke University - Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society, Sanford School of Public Policy
- Joel Fleishman – Professor of Law and Public Policy Studies and the Director of the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center for Ethics, Public Policy, and the Professions
- Edward Skloot - Director, Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society and Professor of the Practice of Public Policy Studies
Duke University - Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE)
- J. Gregory Dees – Professor of the Practice of Social Entrepreneurship and Co-Founder of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship
- Paul Bloom - Faculty Director and Adjunct Professor of Social Entrepreneurship and Marketing
- Cathy Clark - Adjunct Assistant Professor
- Matthew Nash - Managing Director
- Erin Worsham - Associate Director
Growth Philanthropy Network
Alexander Rossides brings extensive experience as a social entrepreneur, business executive and investor to GPN. Mr. Rossides has led both nonprofit and for-profit organizations. He has experience managing the growth of organizations, raising capital, developing affiliate networks and partnerships, and developing systems and technologies that enable information and knowledge sharing. Mr. Rossides served as the CEO of Interactive Video Technologies (IVT), a company he helped found and grow into a leading provider of online video technology that was successfully sold. Prior to IVT, he served as Managing Director of Digital Evolution Venture Capital (DE), where he managed the operations of the firm, raised investment capital for portfolio companies, oversaw investments in healthcare, technology and media companies and served as a Board member in a number of DE portfolio companies. Prior to DE, Mr. Rossides served as a management consultant at Towers Perrin in the strategy and organizational effectiveness practice. Mr. Rossides focused on engagements in public, health and financial sectors.
In the social sector Mr. Rossides´ focus has been in the areas of civic engagement, and youth education and development. In 1990 Mr. Rossides founded and led the Corporate Community Initiative, a non-profit organization in New York City devoted to facilitating corporate volunteerism and delivering management assistance to nonprofits. In 1997 he initiated the College Assistance Program, a mentoring and college preparation service for students in inner-city Boston. Mr. Rossides has served in numerous volunteer and advisory positions with other nonprofits. He received his BA from Dartmouth College in 1986 and his MBA from Columbia Business School in 1996, graduating with honors.
Jennifer Agmi, Nonprofit Analyst
Jennifer Agmi is the Nonprofit Analyst at the Growth Philanthropy Network. She has worked with various non-profits and local government agencies in Massachusetts and New York in the areas of mental health, poverty alleviation, and violence prevention for women and children. Prior to joining GPN, she interned at the New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence where she researched and interviewed women on the accessibility of domestic violence services in the Bronx and traveled throughout New York City providing workshops on dating violence for youth and young adults. She has served on the Grants Advisory Committee for the New York Women’s Foundation and has worked with grass-roots organizations to increase their donor base by establishing performance measurement outcomes and evaluation design.
Jennifer holds a BA in Psychology from Brandeis University and a Master of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.
Karen Schub Epstein came to GPN back in 2005. She had previously worked in the private sector where she focused on operations, finance and accounting. Karen is a CPA who started her career in public accounting at Ernst and Young. She left to join Bohbot Media and Entertainment, a children’s entertainment company then contemplating an initial public offering. After guiding them through that process, Karen joined The Interpublic Group of Companies where she spent the next eight years in various roles, including CFO of an international sports and entertainment company, and Vice President of a $500 million holding company which she helped launch. During her time at Interpublic, she focused on mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, financial analysis, human resources, systems implementations, business development and strategy.
Ms. Epstein devotes considerable time to volunteer activities. She is currently the Treasurer of the Chatsworth Avenue PTA and on the Board of the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation. She was previously the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Larchmont Temple Nursery School and served on the Board of the Larchmont Newcomers Club, in addition to having chaired numerous UJA events. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in accounting and psychology, and graduated from the Executive MBA program at Columbia University with honors.
Nicole Kindred joined GPN in August of 2010 and brings a wealth of experience in both in the nonprofit and private sectors. She has worked and volunteered for a variety of non-profit organizations around the world that are dedicated towards environmental, social, and economic change and has a great deal of interest in the potential of social media and online tools in sharing and growing non-profits. Prior to joining GPN, she worked in Vancouver, BC with an organization dedicated to networking and bringing together non-profit organizations and individuals interested in international development. She also volunteered extensively with Oxfam Canada as the Advocacy and Outreach Campaign Coordinator and is currently the Co-Leader of Oxfam Action Corps NYC. Nicole serves on the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network NYC Board of Directors as the Vice Chair of Technology.
Nicole holds a BA in International Relations from Boston University and a Master’s of International Development and Environmental Analysis from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
Cynthia Massarsky, Vice President and Director, Social Impact Exchange
Cynthia W. Massarsky comes to GPN with a 35-year history in the nonprofit sector, where she has been at the forefront of the social enterprise and entrepreneurship movement. Most recently, she directed the Yale/Goldman Sachs National Business Plan Competition for Nonprofit Organizations - a program she created for the Pew Charitable Trusts, Goldman Sachs Foundation, and Yale School of Management. The program involved three annual competitions that provided significant monetary awards and consulting services to leading nonprofit organizations in social enterprise. In all, she managed an operation that evaluated more than 1,500 entrants, selected 24 award recipients, supervised 470 evaluators and consultants, designed a website of resources for the field, and held three annual conferences attended by more than 1,200 nonprofits, grantmakers, and academic scholars.
Ms. Massarsky is also principal of CWM Marketing Group, a consulting firm she founded 18 years ago. Specializing in marketing, new business development, and evaluation services for nonprofits, foundations, and corporate philanthropy, Ms. Massarsky has served clients including Save the Children; Carnegie Corporation of New York, Covenant House; The Pew Charitable Trusts; Bank Street College; AmeriCorps; Ford Foundation; Families and Work Institute; Goldman Sachs Foundation; Aspen Institute, Association of Junior Leagues International; Nonprofit Finance Fund; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts; AmFAR; The Rockefeller Foundation; and U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Previously, she held positions with Scholastic, Inc., Marlo Thomas' Free To Be Foundation at the Ms Foundation for Women, New Ventures (a consulting firm that guided nonprofits on earned income ventures), and The Foundation Center.
Ms. Massarsky has a number of publications to her credit, most recently, "Coming of Age: Social Enterprise Reaches Its Tipping Point" in Research on Social Entrepreneurship: Understanding and Contributing to an Emerging Field (ARNOVA Occasional Paper Series, Vol. III, June 2006); Generating and Sustaining Nonprofit Earned Income: A Guide to Successful Enterprise Strategies (Jossey-Bass Publishing, April 2004); and "Enterprise Strategies for Generating Revenue" in The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management (October 2004).
Ms. Massarsky earned a bachelor's degree from Simmons College and an M.B.A. from Cornell University.
Janice Schoos, Senior Director, Strategic Engagement
Janice Schoos brings over 20 years of experience in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors to Growth Philanthropy Network. As director of advisor relations, she is expanding a collaborative network of investors interested in funding the growth-capital rounds of Growth Philanthropy’s nonprofit partners.
Ms. Schoos began her career at Chase Manhattan Bank where she managed corporate sponsorships and public-private partnerships for the bank. As part of JPMorgan Private Bank, she was one of the first advisors dedicated to working with high-net-worth clients to develop strategic approaches to their personal philanthropy, while managing the operations of family foundations and advising families on their grant making. She designed, marketed, and serviced the JPMorgan Charitable Giving Fund, the bank’s $400 million+ donor-advised fund. Most recently, she worked with the fundraising consulting firm, Changing Our World, Inc., to create a new philanthropy advisory practice. She counseled individuals, family foundations, corporations, and nonprofits on a variety of efforts to increase the impact of their philanthropic activities.
Ms. Schoos is an officer of the board of directors of Gilda’s Club Westchester, a member of the advisory board of Families Matter, Inc., and provides pro-bono project management support to nonprofits through the Taproot Foundation. She is a past board member of the Community Healthcare Network, served on the advisory committee of the September 11th Children’s Fund, and volunteered with Puppies Behind Bars. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Business from Marymount College, Tarrytown, NY, and authored an essay on evaluation of philanthropic programs for the book, Mapping the New World of American Philanthropy: Causes and Consequences of the Transfer of Wealth, (Wiley Publishers).
Tamara Schweitzer Raben, Knowledge Management Associate
Tamara Schweitzer Raben joined GPN in December 2011 as the Knowledge Management Associate. She comes to the nonprofit sector from a journalism and editorial background, and brings several years of experience writing about the social impact space for leading online and print publications. Prior to GPN, Tamara was the executive editor of Socialbrite.org, a website that provides nonprofits with the resources to make better use of social media to advance their missions and become more effective organizations. In her role at Socialbrite.org, Tamara worked closely with a variety of growing NPOs and helped guide them to relevant resources on the site, as well as provided them with a platform to share best practices.
Additionally, Tamara is a contributing writer for Dowser.org, a website dedicated to publishing solutions-focused stories in the social change community. Tamara’s media background also includes a year working with start-ups and social ventures as an independent communications strategist. Tamara brings to GPN a deep knowledge of the private sector; she started her career as a staff reporter for Inc. Magazine, where she covered entrepreneurship and small business for both the magazine and website.
Tamara received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Michigan. She is excited to be playing a role in knowledge building for the social impact sector.
Duke University- Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society, Sanford School of Public Policy
Joel L. Fleishman, Professor of Law and Public Policy Studies and the Director of the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center for Ethics, Public Policy, and the Professions at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University.
Professor Fleishman joined the Duke faculty in 1971, was the founding director of what is now the Sanford School of Public Policy, and has served the university as vice president, senior vice president, and first senior vice president. He took part-time leave from Duke from 1993 to 2003 to serve as president of the Atlantic Philanthropic Service Company, the United States program staff of the Atlantic Philanthropies.
He is author, co-author, or editor of numerous books and articles reflecting his long-standing interest in ethics, public policy, and nonprofit organizations, the most recent of which, The Foundation: A Great American Secret—How Private Money is Changing the World, was published in January 2007 by Public Affairs Books and has just been released in an expanded paperback edition.
Fleishman serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the Urban Institute and as a trustee of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Brandeis University; the Artscroll Mesorah Heritage Foundation; the American Hebrew Academy; and the Partnership for Public Service. He is also chairman of the visiting committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to his academic activities, Fleishman is a member of the board of directors of the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation. For eight years he wrote a monthly wine column for Vanity Fair magazine.
Edward Skloot, Director, Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society and Professor of the Practice of Public Policy Studies at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University.
In June 2007, Professor Skloot retired as President of the Surdna Foundation, a family foundation headquartered in New York City. He was the first CEO of the $1 billion (2007) foundation and held this position beginning in 1989.
Before coming to Surdna, Skloot was founder and president of New Ventures, a nonprofit consulting firm that assisted other NGOs in earning income as a complement to fund-raising. Begun in 1980, New Ventures was the first organization to promote "social entrepreneurship". Skloot wrote the early literature and helped create the field of social enterprise. He has also served in senior posts in state and local government.
Skloot serves on the boards of directors of Independent Sector; Venture Philanthropy Partners, a group of venture capitalists helping youth-serving organizations in the Washington, D.C. region; Citizen Schools, an after-school program located in seven states; the Partnership for Palliative Care; and TROSA, the largest residential therapeutic community in North Carolina. He is a member of the advisory boards of the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consulting firm affiliated with Bain and Co., and of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS Center), Stanford University.
Skloot has written and spoken widely on the subjects of nonprofit management, social venturing, and sectoral leadership. Surdna recently published a compilation of his recent speeches in a book called Beyond the Money. He also was the principal writer and editor of The Nonprofit Entrepreneur, published by the Foundation Center.
Duke University - Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE), Fuqua School of Business
J. Gregory Dees, Professor of the Practice of Social Entrepreneurship and Co-Founder of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Professor Dees has published extensively on social entrepreneurship, including two books with Jed Emerson and Peter Economy, Enterprising Nonprofits and Strategic Tools for Social Entrepreneurs. In 2007, the Aspen Institute and Ashoka recognized his pioneering work with their first Lifetime Achievement award in Social Entrepreneurship Education. Professor Dees previously worked at McKinsey & Company, and taught at the Yale School of Management, at Harvard Business School, where he helped launch the Initiative on Social Enterprise and received the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching, and at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he served as the Haas Centennial Professor and as founding Co-Director of the Center for Social Innovation. While at Harvard, he interrupted his academic career with a leave of absence to work on entrepreneurial development in Appalachia. He serves on the board of the Bridgespan Group and on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Social Entrepreneurship. He is on numerous advisory boards including Volans, REDF, Aflatoun, Business Leadership for Tomorrow, the Limmat Foundation, and the Social Enterprise Journal.
Paul N. Bloom, Faculty Director and Adjunct Professor of Social Entrepreneurship and Marketing at Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
Dr. Bloom leads CASE’s Scaling Social Impact research and teaches a course on Corporate Social Impact Management. He has had a long career researching how the field of marketing can contribute to societal welfare. He has examined how marketing thinking can help to design better consumer protection and antitrust policies and has also done considerable research on social marketing, which involves developing strategies to encourage people to engage in more socially-beneficial behaviors (e.g., healthier living). In recent years, he has been particularly focused on identifying ways to persuade young people to avoid smoking, drinking-and-driving, and unhealthy eating. He is also currently studying how to make partnerships between corporations and social causes more effective at mitigating social problems while at the same time helping the sales and profitability of brands. Throughout his career, Dr. Bloom has encouraged research by business scholars on social issues, chairing well-received conferences on the consumer movement, marketing and public policy, corporate social initiatives, and corporate responses to the obesity crisis. Dr. Bloom is the author or co-author of more than 100 published articles, papers, book chapters, and books; including the award wining article published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing for 1987 to 1991 and The Handbook of Marketing and Society (Sage Publications, 2001). He formerly served as Professor of Marketing at the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina (1984-2006) and held posts at the University of Maryland and the Marketing Science Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. degree from Lehigh University.
Catherine Clark, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.
In addition to teaching the elective "Social Entrepreneurship" at Fuqua, she and Greg Dees are currently co-directing a project exploring business model choices for social entrepreneurs. Cathy has been an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School since 2001 where she created Columbia’s graduate MBA course on social entrepreneurship, and is Founder and Director of Columbia’s Research Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship (RISE). Cathy has served for eight years as Columbia’s Faculty Advisor for the Global Social Venture Competition, a program that recognizes exemplary MBA student social ventures in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors around the world. Previously, she was Founder and Managing Director of the Flatiron Future Fund, a social venture capital fund, and Founder and President of the Flatiron Foundation, both incubated by Flatiron Partners, a JP Morgan Partners affiliate. Formerly, she was Vice President at the Markle Foundation, where she worked with the founder of Sesame Workshop for over seven years to manage the foundation’s portfolio of grants and program-related investments focused on the social benefits of media and communications technologies. She has also consulted to a diverse list of nonprofit and for-profit organizations, foundations and investment groups. Cathy is a founding member of the Standards Advisory Council of B Lab, serves on the advisory boards for two venture capital impact investment funds: SJF Ventures and Commons Capital, and has served on the board of Investors’ Circle, a national membership organization of angel and institutional social investors, since 2001. Cathy holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She lives outside of Charlottesville, VA with her husband and two children.
Matthew T.A. Nash, Managing Director of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
In addition to his development and administrative responsibilities, Matt leads the Fuqua On Board program, founded and directs the Global Consulting Practicum, advises student consulting projects and independent studies, and advises the student run chapter of Net Impact. Matt is also a visiting lecturer at Duke’s Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, where he co-teaches an undergraduate course in entrepreneurial leadership and social innovation. Matt brings to Fuqua extensive domestic and international social and public sector experience in governance, strategic planning, organization development, performance measurement, business process transformation, and leadership development. Prior to joining the CASE team, he was a senior consultant in strategy and change management with the public sector practice at IBM Business Consulting Services (formerly PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting). In this position and previous consulting capacities, Matt served a diverse set of clients ranging from community-based organizations, including a nonprofit resource center, a community housing board, and a disabilities rights coalition, to large agencies such as World Vision, UNICEF and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Previously, Matt led the Leadership Institute at Yale's Center for Public Service and volunteered with the U.S. Peace Corps in Romania. Matt is a graduate of the Yale School of Management (MBA) and Yale College (BA), where he received the graduation prize for public service. A recipient of Vice President Al Gore’s “Hammer Award” for reinventing government, Matt was recently awarded the inaugural "Member Achievement Award" by Net Impact, the global network of business professionals seeking to use their skills for social, environmental, and economic impact.
Erin L. Worsham, Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
As Associate Director, Erin assists in the management of CASE programs including the Global Consulting Practicum, develops and maintains relationships and strategic partnerships at Duke and in the field, and contributes to the overall strategy, marketing, and continued growth of CASE. Erin brings a unique combination of nonprofit, private and public sector experience in both the domestic and international arenas. Prior to joining CASE, Erin was an Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton’s public sector consulting practice where she led organizational design, strategic planning and business process engagements for federal government and nonprofit clients. In addition to her work at Booz Allen, Erin has consulted with and helped lead nonprofit organizations and social enterprises both in the United States and abroad, developed public-private partnerships at the U.S. Agency for International Development and worked on private sector development issues at the World Bank/International Finance Corporation. Erin earned her BA in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University and her MBA, with certificates in Public Sector Management and Global Management, from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. While at Stanford, Erin was President of the Social Entrepreneurship Club, actively involved in the Public Management Program and helped lead the effort to bring the Net Impact conference to Stanford’s campus in 2005.
