The Collaboration Conference 2015

Courtney Bourns is a senior program officer at the Henry P. Kendall Foundation.  In this role, she collaborates with her colleagues on the staff and board of the Foundation roll out the Foundation’s new grantmaking program focused on building a resilient food system across the six New England states. Courtney joined the foundation in 2011 after three years as Vice President of Programs with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations in Washington, DC. There, she directed efforts to advance the field of philanthropy by supporting grantmakers to partner with their grantees in ways that make the biggest difference to grantee effectiveness and ultimately lead to impact.  Courtney brought to GEO her expertise in facilitation, organizational development and multi-stakeholder change initiatives. Previously, Courtney served as director of organizational development at Conservation International and senior associate at the Interaction Institute for Social Change. Today, she is a board member at the Center for Courage and Renewal.  Courtney received her BA from Brown University and her MA from Union Theological Seminary.

Marianne Hughes recently left her position as the founding Executive Director of the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC). While continuing to work with IISC as a Senior Consultant, Marianne is pursuing work as an individual Consultant, as well.

Marianne combines 20 years of experience as an executive director with expertise in the design and facilitation of systems change, network building, leadership development, public policy advocacy and community organizing with her devotion to social justice, and deep faith in the human capacity for goodness to further the work of global transformation

Marianne’s professional commitment to social change began in 1966, during an early life-directing experience as one of the original VISTA Volunteers. She followed this with years of community organizing and advocacy work. In the decade prior to becoming executive director at IISC, Marianne worked at Regina Villa Associates, a public affairs firm that specializes in public policy and political consulting, public interest lobbying and public participation as a Senior Associate. In 1993, Marianne was hired by Interaction Associates to launch the Interaction Institute for Social Change as a nonprofit partner organization to work in the social and public sectors as well as local communities.  Since that time, IISC has grown from a start-up with a staff of two to an organization with offices in Boston and Belfast and 30 staff and affiliates, serving hundreds of clients annually across the country and world. 

While leading IISC as executive director, Marianne worked with change makers across the world in their social transformation efforts by providing consulting in: strategy development and organizational change; the design and facilitation of multi-stakeholder collaborative planning and network building initiatives as well as learning events and retreats. Marianne also provided capacity building trainings in the skills and tools of collaboration, transformational leadership development and skillful and effective facilitation.