Meet our first class of Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellows!

The Nonprofit Center is pleased to announce the placement of twelve diverse community leaders as a part of the inaugural cohort of the Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellowship. 

The Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellowship aims to build a talent pipeline that helps local nonprofits strengthen their boards. The Board Service Fellows received top-flight instruction, peer learning and on-the-job mentoring making them exceptionally prepared future Board members.  The multi-day sessions covered board roles and responsibilities, financial oversight, board culture, fundraising, and advocacy. Sessions were led by a diverse group of local and national industry experts including Executive Director of the Florida Nonprofit Alliance, Sabeen Perwaiz Syed, BoardSource Senior Consultants Vernetta Walker, JD and James Schwarz, and Nonprofit Center staff members. 

I want to thank the Nonprofit Center for taking the time to put together this program. It helped me to get a better understanding on what it means to be an effective board member. I am thankful for this great opportunity.

Guillermo Rios, Wells Fargo employee and Board Service Fellow for Hubbard House

The Nonprofit Center developed this program in response to local demand and research.  Boards that reflect the diversity of the community, their mission and their program participants tend to make better, more strategic decisions. Yet the Nonprofit Center’s 2020 Compensation and Benefits report found less than 20% of nonprofit board members across the region are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color).  Many organizations struggle to effectively recruit diverse pools of board members because they rely heavily on the social and professional networks of their current board members to find new candidates.

Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellows, 2020 Cohort

• Andrew Austin, Mayo Clinic employee and Board Service Fellow for Family Foundations 
• Dominic Cummings, Fremont Bank employee and Board Service Fellow for 2nd Mile Ministries 
• Guillermo Rios, Wells Fargo employee and Hubbard House
• Kiaira Nixon, Office of the State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit employee and Board Service Fellow for Groundwork Jacksonville 
• Kortney Wesley, U.S. Representative Al Lawson FL-05 employee and Board Service Fellow for MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation 
• Latrica Gillis, Episcopal Children’s Services employee and Board Service Fellow for Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida
• MeShawn Foster, Deloitte and Touche LLP employee and Board Service Fellow for Hope Haven 
• Paul Bell, Feeding Northeast Florida employee and Board Service Fellow for Presbyterian Social Ministries
• Ruth Pierre-Charles, Jessie Ball duPont Fund employee and Board Service Fellow for Beaches Habitat for Humanity
• Tiffany Adams, Family Promise of Jacksonville employee and Board Service Fellow for Sanctuary on 8th Street
• Travis Williams, Kids Hope Alliance employee and Board Service Fellow for ElderSource 
• Tyrica Young, Kids Hope Alliance employee and Board Service Fellow for Family Foundations 

To read detailed bios on each of the Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellows, please view the program page here. The Nonprofit Center Board Service Fellowship 2020 Cohort was generously sponsored by JP Morgan Chase as a part of their broader community efforts to invest in research and programs that work to achieve equity in the nonprofit sector.