Non-Profit Council: Strategic Planning Done Right

Amy joined the Sobel Bixel team after serving as an executive director at an arts and social service agency for children in hospitals and care facilities. Prior to that, Amy was the Managing Director and Director of Development for TADA! Youth Theater and served in leadership roles at several esteemed Manhattan-based cultural institutions. Through her experience leading small nonprofits, Amy has served in just about every role. As a grant writer, she has acquired new and renewed institutional funding in excess of $1M from private foundation, corporate, and government sources. She has designed various types and sizes of fundraising events and is particularly adept at setting a run-of-show, volunteer management, and efficient planning. Amy has been an adjunct professor on nonprofit management at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and is a regular guest lecturer for Association of Fundraising Professionals (global and several local chapters), Nonprofit Learning Lab, Center for Nonprofits, and other service organizations regarding nonprofit management.

Amy specializes in board and staff training/retreats, strategic planning, fundraising plans and implementation, project management, and coaching. She has recruited, trained, and managed staff; devised and managed institutional budgets of $2M+; recruited, onboarded, and trained boards and committees; and conceptualized, wrote copy, and designed countless marketing and donor appeals. She is a member of the New Jersey Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP-NJ) and also serves as the Director of Development for The Story Pirates.

Laura is a change-maker who works with change-makers. She is a leadership development practitioner, a designer of transformative experiences and a champion of mission-driven leaders. Based in the New York City area, Laura runs an independent consulting practice, Nightingale Coaching & Consulting, and serves as an adjunct professor at The New School and NYU, where she teaches graduate courses on leadership and change. At Nightingale, Laura partners with leaders driving social, civic and organizational change, helping them build and implement strategies for change that are collaborative, transformative, inclusive, sustainable and deeply mission-aligned. Through executive coaching, leadership development programs and team retreats, collaborative design processes, and strategy consulting, Laura helps leaders meet complex challenges, level up their leadership, and effectively implement their visions for change.

Laura brings an interdisciplinary perspective to her work, along with extensive experience working across fields and sectors (nonprofit, education, philanthropy, government, corporate, etc). Laura’s approach is informed by her background in the arts and her deep commitment to equity and inclusion. Before launching Nightingale, Laura worked at Coro New York Leadership Center, serving as Senior Director of Training and Consulting, and prior to that, as Director of the Coro Fellows Program. Laura holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Organization Development from The New School, along with undergraduate degrees in Theatre and Sociology. Recent consulting clients include Brooklyn Public Library, MIT Sloan School of Management, NYC Department of Education, Vera Institute of Justice, Tow Youth Justice Institute, Spotify, Snapchat, The Lemelson Foundation, Exponent Philanthropy, UJA-Federation of New York, Dechert LLP, Chinese-American Planning Council, The Motherhood Center and Goodwill NYNJ.