Nonprofit Center of Excellence Academy
This one week intensive academy will take place June 2 – 6, 2025, at the Hoffman Hotel, Basalt, Colorado, and will include up to fifteen (15) nonprofit organizations. Ideal participants are leaders of organizations who are open to learning and growing collaboratively to support the sustainable impact of their mission.
Please email Valerie Carlin at valerie@aspencommunityfoundation.org with any questions.
TO APPLY: Please complete the application by 5PM on Friday, May 2, 2025.
| Cirriculum
Participants will receive professional training and consultation to provide essential tools and resources for becoming high performing, high impact organizations. This program will help improve organizational capacity through interactive, in-person workshop training in the following areas:
Day 1 – June 2nd
Values-Based Leadership
- Understanding your personal and professional (organizational) values – where they come from, where they intersect and how they inform your leadership today.
Co-Piloting for Scalable and Sustainable Success – Organizational & Board Leadership
- Understanding boards of directors roles and responsibilities for legal compliance; understanding federal, state and local requirements and exercising appropriate oversight and support of staff.
Day 2 – June 3rd
Understanding Your Organization: People, Process, Infrastructure and Finance
- Assessing strengths, challenges, opportunities and threats to the pillars of high-performing nonprofit organizations – People, Process, Infrastructure and Financial model.
- Identifying priority opportunities for strengthening organizational capacity in governance and operations.
- Understanding the tools and strategies for optimizing your human resources for sustaining your nonprofit business and culture.
- Breaking down the tools, rules and responsibilities for effective nonprofit fiscal management and oversight by the board and staff.
Day 3 – June 4th
Effective Resource Development: Individual & Corporate Philanthropy, Grants and Social Enterprise
- Strategic Resource Development – developing clear plans with diversified strategies and the human capacity to implement.
- Fundamentals of Fundraising – engaging in resource development driven by clear program and financial objectives, a long-range plan and an annual plan for fundraising, active and trained board members, skilled staff and effective systems for record- keeping, communications, evaluation and reporting.
- Framing a compelling, mission, purpose and values-based case for support. How to best advance your mission through the grantmaking ecosystem.
Successfully Navigating and Winning in the Grantmaking Space
- Framing a compelling, mission, purpose and values-based case for support. How to best advance your mission through the grantmaking ecosystem.
Day 4 – June 5th
Program Design and Evaluation
- Using intentional program design processes and best practices for identifying desired outcomes, developing appropriate activities and giving staff the requisite skills to do the work.
- Monitoring results and adapting programs to new information and lessons learned, through a consistent process.
- Engaging in intentional processes of continuous quality improvement; improving effectiveness and remaining accountable to the people they serve.
Day 5 – June 6th
Becoming an “Embedded Strategy” Organization
- Commonly organizations, programs and teams pause for strategic planning. What if you could become an “Embedded Strategy” Organization and maintain strategic focus within ongoing meetings and operations? It won’t be easy but it will be rewarding.
- Our conversation will outline how to design and develop a strategic plan to identify key priorities grounded in your mission, informed by your community, and reflective of the opportunities to maximize your impact.
Advancing the Common Good – Community Collaboration and Coalition Building
- Leveraging collaborative networks/coalitions to affect public policy, influence public opinion and make scalable and lasting impact.
- Committing to building understanding and mutual respect for broad-based and sustainable change to advance the “Common Good.”
| Presenters
Julie Christiansen
| About Julie
A results-driven operational and financial accountant with over 30 years of experience in improving efficiencies, increasing profitability, and enhancing reporting. Julie has a proven track record of success in a variety of accounting roles. With prior Big 4 experience and a strong background in management positions, she specializes in accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, budgeting and nonprofit accounting and reporting. Julie is committed to delivering high-quality financial services to clients, helping organizations streamline processes and ensure accurate reporting. Julie is a graduate of the University of Wyoming and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant in Colorado.
John Dougherty
| About John
Founder of Human Service Innovations John brings a personal and professional passion for helping organizations that help people achieve their greatest potential. With over 20 years in direct care, management and executive leadership, John brings a unique breadth and depth of knowledge to his work. He values and respects the complex challenges organizations face from the ground level to the top. John’s broad range of roles and responsibilities throughout his career provides essential insights to help them succeed in all areas from direct practice and program development to organizational operations, strategic leadership, management, and financial sustainability.
Kate Kalstein
| About Kate
Kate Kalstein provides governance, research and planning services to non-profit clients through Kate Kalstein Consulting. Engagements include complex project management and interim leadership; strategic planning; work to develop improved board structure and meeting practices through enhanced board governance; comprehensive research and policy development; leadership coaching; and meeting facilitation. All services include practical, concise tools customized for each organization to support implementation and capacity building. An attorney with more than 20-years professional experience, Kate has devoted her entire career to strengthening nonprofit organizations through leadership, advocacy, and the law to enable them to focus on progress. Prior to becoming an independent consultant in 2009, Kate served as Legislative Counsel to the California Judges Association and Director of Policy and Planning at the Edgewood Center for Children and Families in San Francisco. She received her law degree from the University of California Law San Francisco (formerly UC Hastings College of the Law). Kate also earned the BoardSource Certificate of Nonprofit Board Consulting in 2016. Appointed by Governor John Hickenlooper in fall 2015, Kate proudly served as Commissioner to the State Commission on Community Service, Serve Colorado for three years. She also completed the Colorado Governors Fellowship leadership development program in 2024. Today Kate is based in Denver, Colorado where she remains actively involved with the community through her professional practice, volunteer activities, and ongoing leadership development.
Matt Leighty
| About Matt
Matt Leighty is the Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of GrantFlow, a national grant services firm dedicated to helping nonprofits secure the resources they need to advance their missions. With over 15 years of experience and more than 7,000 grants written, Matt has helped raise over $150 million for organizations across sectors — from health and human services to education, the arts, and the environment. Matt is passionate about making grant writing approachable, strategic, and impactful. His teaching focuses on demystifying the process, equipping nonprofits with practical tools, and helping them tell compelling stories that resonate with funders.
Mary Beth McIntire
| About Mary Beth
A passionate and strategic-minded executive, Mary Beth has advanced several organizations and led many initiatives to elevate mission and create positive change. As a trusted advisor Mary Beth’s abilities to bring a team to consensus, solve a problem and direct key business initiatives have been demonstrated in her roles in the c-suite. Strengths in organizational strategy, board governance, program development and fundraising have resulted in cultivating more $75 million in mission impact investments. Mary Beth received her B.S. from James Madison University and an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Namrata Sherethsa
| About Namrata
Namrata Bhoomi Shrestha is a committed public health professional and coalition builder currently working as a consultant with the West Mountain Regional Health Alliance (WMRHA) and other local community partners since January 2025. She previously served for eight years as WMRHA’s Health Access Director, where she led regional initiatives on food insecurity, health equity, and social determinants of health across Colorado’s Region 12—Eagle, Garfield, Pitkin, and Summit counties. With nearly a decade of experience in U.S. and international nonprofit work, Namrata’s leadership has focused on collaboration, equity, and systems change. She managed multi-sector coalitions like the Mountain Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (MCFNS), led regional strategy and partner engagement, and helped secure sustainable solutions to improve access to food and care in underserved communities. She also implemented the federal Accountable Health Communities Model (AHCM), screening patients for non-medical needs and linking them to vital services. This work strengthened integrated care systems and demonstrated how addressing social needs leads to better health outcomes. Namrata previously served as WMRHA’s Regional Health Connector (RHC), identifying health priorities and building strong relationships across clinical, government, and nonprofit sectors. Originally from Nepal, she also brings global experience in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) programs with partners like UNICEF, WSSCC, and the Swiss Red Cross. Her work is rooted in uplifting communities most affected by inequities and ensuring their voices help shape policies and programs for lasting change.
Natalie Travers
| About Natalie
Natalie Travers holds 20 years of professional experience launching social impact initiatives across multiple global geographies, including collaborations with generation Z, global executives, Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, and Grammy-award winning musicians. Areas of expertise include brand development and narrative change, go-to-marketing strategy, strategic planning, and financial management. She enjoys delivering value in efficient and creative ways, and if there is an ambitious goal to test or an inequitable system to disrupt, she is ready to play. Markets in which she has worked and studied include the urban and rural U.S., Spain, Israel, Haiti, India, Germany, Chile and China.
Trina Willard
| About Trina
Trina Willard has a passion for cultivating a realistic approach to data that supports community change. As a social psychologist and program evaluator for over three decades, she has discovered that many nonprofit and government organizations don’t have the capacity or tools to capture data that could optimize their operations and outcomes. This need, blended with her passion to work with those who serve the community, motivated her to launch Knowledge Advisory Group in 2010. Trina focuses on the effectiveness of programs, policies and procedures, emphasizing the need to identify and measure realistic outcomes for continued growth. Her areas of expertise include program evaluation, outcomes measurement, quantitative and qualitative data collection, meeting facilitation, strategic decision-making, and building evaluation culture. Trina previously served as Evaluation Chief at the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and Vice President of Transformation Systems, Inc. She is a Licensed Consultant for the Nonprofit Standards for Excellence.
