Board Members

Kathleen Enright, Board Chair
Executive Director, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Kathleen P. Enright is the founding executive director of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO). Understanding that grantmakers are successful only to the extent that their grantees achieve meaningful results, GEO promotes strategies and practices that contribute to grantee success. While with GEO, Kathleen (with the GEO board of directors) has developed a compelling vision and cohesive strategy for the organization, led GEO through a merger, supervised the development of a host of products and services and forged high-profile publishing and other partnerships. 

Kathleen speaks and writes regularly on issues of nonprofit and grantmaker effectiveness at national and regional gatherings of executives and trustees. Publications include Investing in Leadership: Inspiration and Ideas from Philanthropy's Latest Frontier and Funding Effectiveness: Lessons in Building Nonprofit Capacity.

Previously, Kathleen served as the group director, marketing and communications for BoardSource, where she was responsible for developing and implementing an organization-wide marketing and communications strategy, building and maintaining a consistent and recognizable brand, supervising the promotion of all products and services, and building public awareness of the importance of strong nonprofit boards.

Kathleen serves on the board of Fieldstone Alliance and the advisory board of The Center for Effective Philanthropy. She previously served on Independent Sector's Building Value Together Committee and the selection committee of the Washington Post Nonprofit Excellence Award. She holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master's degree in public administration from The George Washington University.

Norman W. Harrington, Jr., Board Secretary
Principal, NWH & Associates

Norman W. Harrington, Jr. is a management consultant who has been engaged in providing management consultant services to organizations for over twenty-five years.  In June 2004, Harrington launched NWH & Associates, a consulting firm that provides management and technical assistance to businesses and nonprofit organizations in the areas of strategic planning, capital and fund development, business planning, and general business advisory services. 

In addition to his consulting practice, Harrington has been a lecturer and seminar presenter on management topics and panels regarding diversity and emerging markets.  He is an instructor with the University of St. Thomas and has taught classes for their Center for Non-Profits and Fast Trac Entrepreneur Training Program. 

Prior to establishing his consulting practice, Harrington served as Development Officer for The Saint Paul Foundation, Spectrum Trust, a family of endowments targeting the Asian, Hispanic, African/African American, and Native American communities.  As Development Officer of the Saint Paul Foundation’s Diversity Endowment Funds, Harrington was responsible for the development and marketing of five funds and associated funds with total assets in excess of $10 million and together awarded more than $2.5 million to community organizations in Minnesota.

Harrington serves on several boards and is a member of the Advisory Board of Boltcutters Ministries International, CEMBA Advisory Board of the Carlson School of Management and Minnesota Blacks in Philanthropy, a chapter of National Association Black Foundation Executives.

Harrington graduated with honors and received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Morris Brown College, and received his Master Business Administration in 2005 from the Carlson School of Management.

David O. Renz, Ph.D., Board Treasurer
Beth K. Smith/Missouri Chair in Nonprofit Leadership and Director, Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership

David Renz is the Beth K. Smith/Missouri Chair in Nonprofit Leadership and the Director of the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, an outreach center of the Bloch School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. David teaches and conducts research on nonprofit and public service governance and leadership and, especially, on strategies for improving nonprofit organization and board effectiveness. He writes for both scholarly and practice communities, with more than 100 articles, chapters, and reports in journals such as Nonprofit Management and Leadership, The Nonprofit Quarterly, Strategic Governance, Public Productivity and Management Review, Public Administration Review, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

David serves public service organizations in many capacities, including consulting and service on councils, task forces, and governing boards. Among other initiatives, he helped found the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (a network of university-based nonprofit centers) and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers. David also works on leader development programming with the faculty of the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Prior to joining the University of Missouri, David was a Minneapolis-based private consultant and adjunct faculty member with the University of St. Thomas. His career includes several senior executive positions in government, including Executive Director of the Metropolitan Council of the Twin Cities and Assistant Commissioner of Administration for the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. David earned his Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of Minnesota, with a concentration in Organization Theory and Administration.

Michael Cortés
Research and Management Consultant

From his community organizing roots, Michael Cortés has held leadership roles in legislative lobbying and advocacy initiatives for nonprofits, eventually becoming vice president for research, advocacy and legislation at the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C., and director of planning, finance, and administration at the Levi Strauss Foundation in San Francisco. 

His interest in public policy led to a career in academia, with key positions in public policy analysis and advocacy, nonprofit administration, and urban planning at the University of San Francisco, University of Colorado, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Cortés is currently a research and management consultant who helps advocacy organizations use public policy research and analysis more effectively.  He teaches public policy analysis and advocacy at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.  His board service has included The Center for Community Change, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, the Urban Institute Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, the Independent Sector research committee, and editorial boards of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and Nonprofit Management and Leadership.  Cortés holds an M.S.W. from the University of Michigan, and an M.P.P. and Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. 

William R. King
President, Minnesota Council on Foundations

Bill King has served as president of the Minnesota Council on Foundations since 2001. He has worked at the Council since 1987, managing the Council’s education and professional development programs, strategic planning efforts, race and diversity initiatives and special projects. 

Prior to joining the Council, Bill worked in various positions in the nonprofit, philanthropic and community service sector. He was a consultant in grant review and program development with several corporate and private foundations, primarily under contract with Northwestern National Life Insurance Company and the Medtronic Foundation. He spent six years as division manager for community development at the Greater Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, where he managed the Keystone Awards Program, Leadership Minneapolis and a number of other programs. Bill also spent six years with the American Red Cross Blood Services Program in the area of donor development.

He currently serves as chair of the board of directors of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers and serves on the boards of the national Council on Foundations in Washington DC and Fieldstone Alliance in St. Paul.

Bill graduated from the University of Minnesota, Morris with a B.S. in elementary education.

Janine Lee
Executive Director, Southern Partners Fund

Janine Lee is a veteran strategist and grantmaker in philanthropy, with more than 20 years of diverse leadership experience with nonprofits and foundations.  Her areas of expertise include prevention, youth development, education, community building and nonprofit organizational effectiveness. 

Lee is currently the executive director of the Southern Partners Fund, a public foundation established in 1998 and emerging as one of the most significant organizations in the country providing funding, capacity building, operating support, and technical assistance to rural organizing efforts in the deep South.
 
Throughout her career, Lee has fostered and guided initiatives that have nurtured disadvantaged young children, encouraged higher education opportunities for low-income youth, and bolstered drug and alcohol resistance among teens.  She has overseen grant funds totaling more than $100 million during her career in philanthropy. 

Lee holds master’s degrees in rehabilitation counseling and business administration.  In addition to her professional responsibilities, Lee is a dedicated community servant, on the board of the Skillbuilders Fund for Women and Girls, co-founder and former chair of the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, and a former Rockhurst University regent.  She is an alumna of Leadership 2000 in Kansas City, Kansas and of Kansas City Tomorrow in Kansas City, Missouri, and is a lifetime member of the National Black MBA. 

Paul Light
Paulette Goddard Professor of Public Service, Robert Wagner School of Public Service, New York University

Before joining NYU, Paul Light was vice president and director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution, and founding director of its Center for Public Service.  He has published extensively on American government, the presidency, government reform, nonprofit performance, and organizational excellence, and is the author of 20 books.  He has held teaching posts at the University of Virginia, University of Minnesota, and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.  He was also senior adviser to the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and director of the public policy grant program at the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Jon Pratt
Executive Director, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits

Jon Pratt, executive director and founder of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, has worked in nonprofit organizations for twenty years, including as attorney/lobbyist for an environmental organization (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group), regional director for an alternative foundation (the Youth Project), and as director for a coalition formed by nonprofits to reform corporate and foundation philanthropy (the Philanthropy Project). In 1982, he was the campaign manager for the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who was at that time a candidate for Minnesota State Auditor.

Jon is a founding member of the board of The National Council of Nonprofit Associations, where he currently chairs the public policy committee. He has authored research reports on nonprofit economic trends, philanthropy, and legal issues, and is a frequent speaker on nonprofit topics.

He is the author of Minnesota Philanthropy and Disadvantaged People and State by State: An Organizing Manual for State Associations of Nonprofit Organizations, and is a contributing editor of The Nonprofit Quarterly.

Jon serves on the advisory committees for the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the Johns Hopkins University State of the Sector Project. He has a law degree from Antioch School of Law, Washington, D.C., and a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University.