2016 National Conference

Paul Schmitz is a Senior Advisor to the Collective Impact Forum. Paul is also the first Innovation Fellow in Residence at Georgetown University's Beeck Center for Social Innovation and Impact. Paul is the author of Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up (Jossey Bass, 2011), and the former CEO of Public Allies where he spent 21 years helping more than 5,600 diverse young leaders turn their passions to make a difference into careers working for community and social change. Paul writes and speaks frequently on leadership, diversity, civic participation, social innovation, collective impact, and community building. He is a faculty member of The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, a board member of Independent Sector and The United Way of Greater Milwaukee, and the former co-chair of Voices for National Service. Paul co-chaired the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign’s Civic Engagement Policy Group, was a member of The Obama-Biden Transition Team, and was appointed by President Obama to The White House Council on Community Solutions. Paul is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he received their Graduate of the Last Decade Alumni award. He has been recognized by The Rockefeller Foundation as a Next Generation Leadership Fellow, by the Nonprofit Times as one of the 50 most powerful and influential nonprofit leaders in America, and by Fast Company Magazine with their Social Capitalist Award for innovation. He lives in Milwaukee with his partner and five children.  

Stacy Holland is a committed advocate with more than 20 years of experience who has played a vital role in ensuring that youth in the Philadelphia region have access to the academic, career, and support services necessary to build bright futures and prepare them to be leaders in the workforce. Currently, serving as Executive Director of The Lenfest Foundation, Holland is continuing to pursue her passion of serving disadvantaged youth throughout Philadelphia. Most recently, Holland served as the Chief of Strategic Partnerships for the School District of Philadelphia. She built an office of Strategic Partnerships which was responsible for organizing the eco-system of partnerships which served over 200+ schools as well as leading the district’s fundraising initiatives. Prior to her assignment with the School District, Holland served as the President & CEO of the Philadelphia Youth Network (PYN), a nonprofit she co-founded in 1999. Holland oversaw the growth of PYNC from its inception. Starting as a small nonprofit organization, PYN grew into an independent, citywide entity dedicated to integrating services and building systems that promotes positive post-secondary and economic outcomes for young people serving over 15,000 youth annually with an annual budget of over $30 million. 

Tawanna is the Executive Director of the Northside Funders Group, a place-based, collective impact organization of 20 corporate, community and private foundations and public sector investors committed to aligning investments and strategies to catalyze comprehensive, sustainable change in North Minneapolis. In this role she facilitates a four-lever approach to helping funders Learn, Leverage, Influence and Invest in new ways that advance equity and build social capital and extend the prosperity of the Twin Cities to one of its most impoverished neighborhoods. Before moving to Minnesota, Tawanna was the Director of Diversity for Cox Communications, where she served as an advisor to the senior management team, assisting in setting the highest standards for business growth, innovation and stakeholder return by ensuring that the company understood and acted upon the needs of diverse communities. Prior to joining Cox, she served as the first Executive Director for Destination Midtown, leading an unprecedented community economic development public-private partnership. Her visionary leadership lead to more than $500 million of re-investment in the historic heart of Omaha in just three years, and also resulted in the development of a model that was later replicated in North and South Omaha.

Tawanna has a Bachelors Degree of Public Administration from Washburn University in Topeka, KS. She recently completed the Executive Certificate in Transformational Leadership from Georgetown University. In 2014 she was awarded a prestigious Bush Fellowship by the Bush Foundation to engage her transformational leadership toward creating systems that fully leverage and deploy black philanthropy and civic leadership as key differentiators in the battle for economic equity. Tawanna’s civic leadership has been recognized by many awards including the Midlands Business Journal’s (Omaha) 40 Under 40 and in 2004 as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Omahan’s. And, in 2005 the Midlands Business Journal honored her as one of Omaha’s 40 under 40. And this year she was selected as a part of the Twin-Cities cohort for the inaugural Harvard Business School Young American Leaders Program on U.S. Economic Competitiveness. And, she was recently selected as one of twenty-four 2016 Presidio Institute Fellows. Tawanna has lent her leadership to over 30 non-profit and philanthropic boards over the last decade. Today she serves as a Trustee at the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, President of the Minneapolis- St. Paul Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, Immediate Past-Co-Chair & Board Member of the African American Leadership Forum and as a member of the Hennepin County Penn Avenue Community Works Steering Committee. Tawanna is married to Eric Black and has two children, Traviata (4) and Christian (3).