Civic Ventures Staff & Advisors

Vanessa Alabarces is a Program Associate at Civic Ventures working primarily on The Purpose Prize. She recently earned a Masters in journalism and mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focused on the use of media advocacy to build community, change public perceptions, and empower marginalized populations. Before coming to Civic Ventures, Vanessa worked at the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization Common Cause as a field organizer in Florida during the 2008 presidential election. After stints living in places as exotic as Italy and the midwest, Vanessa, a native Floridian, recently made San Francisco her new home.
Email: valabarces [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7484

David Bank is a Vice President and Editor of Encore.org. A veteran journalist, Bank was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal for nine years, covering Silicon Valley and the software industry. His book, Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft (Free Press) was named one of the "Best Business Books of 2001" by the Harvard Business Review. From 2001 to 2003, he was the Journal's national philanthropy reporter, pioneering coverage of venture philanthropy, giving-while-living, and the new crop of billionaire advocates. Previously, he was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and the Los Angeles Daily News and was a foreign correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea from 1988 to 1990. He has also filed from Tibet, the Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, and Mexico. His magazine articles have appeared in Newsweek, Wired, Mother Jones, and Out. Bank was a 1996 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He has an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in politics from the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Email: dbank [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7488

Doug Braley is Vice President of Finance and Administration at Civic Ventures. He has more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit management, accounting, and fund development, most recently serving nine years as the Executive Director of the Horizons Foundation. During his tenure, he initiated collaborative grantmaking and philanthropic programs targeting lesbian and gay youth and elders in the San Francisco Bay Area. He conceived, co-wrote, and edited the comprehensive publication Out in Front, A Call for Leadership in Funding the Needs of Bay Area Lesbian and Gay Youth and Adults, and served in advisory positions with the United Way of the Bay Area and Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, an affinity group of the Council on Foundations. Prior to his work with Horizons, Braley managed the finances and human resources for Very Special Arts, an educational affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He has master's degrees in arts management and business administration from University of Maryland, College Park and San Francisco State University, respectively.
Email: dbraley [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7482

Tony Brasunas is the Webmaster at Civic Ventures. He conceptualizes, designs, and develops the organization's evolving web presence. Tony also has worked as Webmaster at the American Society on Aging and at Garlic & Grass, a progressive political web magazine. Before joining Civic Ventures, he traveled for nine months through the mountains of Peru. Tony graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Computer Science.
Email: tbrasunas [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7481

Laura M. Chambers is a Vice President at Civic Ventures. She has over 20 years of front-line advocacy experience. She is former Vice President of the Advocacy Institute and Program Director for the Institute's $23 million Leadership for a Changing World program, a Ford Foundation national recognition program for social justice leaders. Chambers is also former Executive Director of both the Women's Housing Coalition, Inc., and Hannah House Inc., where her work ranged from management to fundraising to coalition building. She continues to be a prominent advocate for low-income and homeless people in Maryland and Washington, D.C. She has worked for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), United States Department of Labor, Baltimore Mentoring Institute, and Planned Parenthood of Maryland. Laura is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, has studied in Harvard's Leadership for the 21st Century program, and has served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, West Africa. She is the proud parent of three sons and resides with her husband in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Email: lchambers [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6163

Jennifer Coate is Associate Director for Communications at Civic Ventures. Her experience includes developing and delivering communications strategies and messages on a range of public interest issues, including healthcare and the environment. Most recently, Coate worked for the largest labor union in the country, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) managing communications for several campaigns, including a national RN program focused on healthcare reform. As Deputy Director of Communications for the National Environmental Trust, Coate ran successful media strategies protecting America's national forests and exposing the health affects of toxic chemicals. As Congressman George Miller's Deputy Press Secretary and Legislative Assistant, Coate handled communications and policy for national and local issues. She got her start in communications as a research assistant for Hedrick Smith's PBS/Frontline documentary, Critical Condition: how good is your healthcare? and as an intern at San Francisco's local TV news station, Bay-TV. A graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Coate earned dual degrees in Political Science and History.
Email: jcoate [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7490

Jim Emerman is Executive Vice President at Civic Ventures. For the past three years, he has been a vice president and Director of the Purpose Prize. For 17 years prior to joining Civic Ventures, Emerman worked at the American Society on Aging, the largest association of professionals working with and on behalf of older adults. Most recently as Chief Operating Officer, he had primary responsibility for day-to-day operations and supervised all programmatic activities of the organization, including membership services and programs, publications, marketing, educational programs, special projects, administration, finance, human resources, operations, and information systems. He also has led ASA's efforts on issues ranging from older worker employment and corporate eldercare to assistive and information technology, family caregiving, medication use, and public policy, among many others. Prior to ASA, Emerman held positions of increasing responsibility in the development office of the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Corporate and Foundations Relations at the time he left the University. He graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude with a B.A. in English literature.
Email: jemerman [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7487

Marc Freedman is the founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, a think tank helping society achieve the greatest return on experience. He spearheaded creation of the Experience Corps, America's largest nonprofit national service program engaging individuals over 55, and The Purpose Prize, the nation's biggest investment in older social innovators.
Freedman was described by The New York Times earlier this year as "the voice of aging baby boomers who are eschewing retirement," while The Wall Street Journal stated in 2007: "In the past decade, Mr. Freedman has emerged as a leading voice in discussions nationwide about the changing face of retirement." He is author of Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life; Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America; and The Kindness of Strangers. His new book, On Purpose: Boomers, Work, and the Search for a Calling, will be published in 2009.
Recognized by Fast Company magazine in 2007 and again in 2008 as one of the nation's leading social entrepreneurs, Freedman is widely published and quoted in the national media, and has been honored with numerous awards and fellowships. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College with an MBA from Yale University and was a Visiting Fellow of Kings College, University of London. He lives with his wife and children in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Email: mfreedman [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7480

Judy Goggin is a Vice President for Civic Ventures. She is based in Boston and currently leads the development of the Civic Ventures Next Chapter Initiative. She has worked in the field of aging and lifelong learning for more than 25 years. Prior to joining Civic Ventures in 2001 Judy was associated with Elderhostel for 18 years where she served as Vice President for U.S. Programs and was involved in the development of Elderhostel's Service Learning programs and the Elderhostel Institute Network, a membership organization of Lifelong Learning Institutes. She began her career in the field of continuing education where she was involved in the early development of external degrees and credit for prior learning at colleges in Oregon and Colorado. Goggin speaks, conducts workshops for national organizations, and writes for publications in the areas of aging, higher education, civic engagement, and encore careers. She serves in an advisory capacity for several national organizations and initiatives including AARP, The American Society on Aging, The National Council on the Aging, The Transition Network and The American Libraries Council.
Email: jgoggin [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 617-522-1587

John Gomperts, President of Civic Ventures, has been deeply involved in promoting civic engagement in senior leadership positions in both government and the nonprofit sector. Until recently, Gomperts was CEO of Experience Corps, leading a major expansion of the program, which engages people over 55 as tutors and mentors in urban public schools.  At Civic Ventures Gomperts is spearheading the campaign to promote encore careers – work that combines social impact, personal fulfillment, and continued income.  By establishing encore careers as a new aspiration and norm for people who have finished their midlife work, Civic Ventures is working to produce a windfall of human talent to solve society’s greatest problems.
Prior to joining Civic Ventures and Experience Corps, Gomperts served in a variety of positions including Chief Operating Officer at Public Education Network, and Chief of Staff of the Corporation for National and Community Service.  Gomperts has also worked in senior positions in the U.S. Senate, first as legislative director for Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania, and then as deputy director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee, working for Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and John Kerry of Massachusetts. Before heading to Capitol Hill, Gomperts practiced law and clerked for a federal judge.
Gomperts serves on the boards of the Points of Light Institute / Hands On Network and Volunteer Match, and the advisory board of Politics & Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington DC. Gomperts is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and has a J.D. from Georgetown University.  He is married to Katherine Klein, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and has two daughters.

Email: jgomperts [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6143

Michelle Hynes is a Vice President of Civic Ventures. She was Director of Experience Corps prior its launch as an independent nonprofit in 2008. Over the past 16 years, she has been a leader in efforts to increase children’s academic achievement, engage the public in improving public schools, and create stronger communities. For the past three years, Michelle has led Experience Corps to double in size, adding sites in six new cities and nearly 1,000 more members to a national service program that now serves 20,000 children and 160 public schools across the country. Before joining Experience Corps, Hynes was a consultant to several nonprofit organizations in the Washington, DC area. Earlier in her career, she directed a multi-million dollar, federally-funded children’s literacy program at Reading Is Fundamental, designed an information clearinghouse and other member services for the Public Education Network, and managed several programs focused on connecting community organizations with their local public schools. As a volunteer, Michelle has been involved with the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the In2Books Pen Pal program, and an informal network of Washington, DC voters interested in local school governance. She also serves on the advisory board for Tranquil Space Yoga and is helping to design a new program for high school girls that combines yoga, creativity, and leadership activities. Michelle holds a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania.
Email: mhynes [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6167

Cal J. Halvorsen is a Program Associate for Civic Ventures. He graduated from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where he earned his Master of Social Work and researched in-depth policies and programs affecting older adults, especially in areas of civic engagement. He was a graduate intern for The OASIS Institute, a national nonprofit educational institution that provides lifelong learning and volunteer opportunities for older adults, as well as interning for the St. Louis Area Agency on Aging. He graduated with his BA in International Studies at the University of Iowa and studied in Dortmund, Germany while in undergrad as well. A native Iowan, Cal currently resides in Washington, DC.
Email: chalvorsen [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6186

Ivy Ho is the Accounting Manager at Civic Ventures. With more than six years experience in the field of accounting and finance at the mid-managerial level, Ivy has expertise in financial accounting, reporting, and analysis. She has two Masters degrees in Business Administration from the University of Leicester, England and San Francisco State University. After spending most of her life in Asia and some years in Western Europe, Ivy has now settled down in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Email: Iho [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7493

Alexandra Céspedes Kent is Director for the Purpose Prize. Prior to coming to Civic Ventures, Alexandra promoted civic leadership and financial literacy. She directed community programs for the Coro Center for Civic Leadership, where she designed and facilitated intensive leadership programs for groups of teens, working professionals, retirees and partner institutions, including the University of California at San Francisco. At Juma Ventures, a social enterprise employing low-income teens, she managed the nation's largest Individual Development Account (IDA) Program and implemented the local arm of SEED, a national policy demonstration testing the feasibility of a matched savings account system for children. Alexandra currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Treasure Island Homeless Development Initiative.
Email: akent [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7486

Janet Luce is a Program Associate at Civic Ventures helping to launch the Encore Fellows Pilot  –  a new social purpose internship designed to support individuals transitioning from for-profit sector work into the nonprofit sector.  In addition to the Silicon Valley Encore Initiative she assists other Civic Ventures projects, including The Next Chapter and the Community College Encore Career Project.  Prior to Civic Ventures Janet worked 20+ years in higher education--most recently 8 years as service-learning director at Saint Mary's College of California, and for the previous 13 years at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University.
Email: jluce [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7494

Sarah Maple is the Web Designer at Civic Ventures. With a focus on intuitive interactive design; she integrates video, animation, analytics and imagery, into engaging user experiences. Sarah´s previous experience includes work within the interactive marketing space, providing design and direction in the development of web sites and web applications for a wide range of clients. Sarah holds a degree in fine art from Virginia Commonwealth University, emphasizing digital media.
Email: smaple [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7491

Michele Melendez is the Publications Manager. She brings to Civic Ventures 15 years of experience as a journalist and a deep belief that people should have the chance for meaningful, enriching work beyond their first careers. At the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Newhouse chain of 26 daily newspapers, she covered generational issues for eight years. As a national correspondent there, she illuminated stories of old and young, pop culture and politics, family relationships, and personal journeys. She worked previously at The Plain Dealer, the daily newspaper in Cleveland, as a metro news reporter and later as a features writer concentrating on women’s issues. She has a print journalism degree from The American University in Washington.
Email: mmelendez [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6183

Terry Nagel is Managing Editor of Encore.org at Civic Ventures. She is a longtime journalist who was a reporter and editor for the San Mateo (Calif.) Times, then worked as a writer and editor for the San Francisco Chronicle and as Assistant Managing Editor of Forbes ASAP magazine. She also was the founding Community Manager for Expedia.com's Family Travel and Adventure Travel Forums, and she ran an out-of-print book search firm. She transitioned to the nonprofit world in 2002, when she became Managing Editor of GreatSchools.net. She later served as Communications Officer for the Skoll Foundation. Terry was elected in 2003 to the Burlingame City Council. She is a 2003 graduate of the Coro Center for Civic Leadership’s Community Fellows leadership program and a 2006 graduate of the League of California Cities’ Civic Leadership Institute. During 2007, she served as mayor and was re-elected. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Email: tnagel [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7489

Nancy Peterson is a Vice President working on the Encore Fellows program at Civic Ventures. For the past 25 years, she has worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, statewide in California, and nationally to advance the field of community service and volunteerism. Recent projects include a study of senior service in California sponsored by the Governor's Office on Service and Volunteerism, AARP, and the Corporation for National and Community Service; the six-year California Initiative for National and Community Service of The James Irvine Foundation; and management of the Northern California Grantmakers National Service Task Force. Previously, she provided key support to Public/Private Venture's five-year Urban Corps Expansion Project, an initiative to start new service corps in major cities throughout the country. During the 1980s, she was instrumental in helping to develop local service corps in California. Throughout her career, Peterson has worked with foundations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Piton Foundation, the National Park Service, the National Association of Service and Conservation Corps, and California Conservation Corps. She also serves on the board of Youth Service California. Before becoming involved in community service, Nancy was a regional and environmental planner. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Email: npeterson [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-383-6370

Phyllis Segal As Vice President of Civic Ventures, Ms. Segal leads initiatives aimed at understanding and expanding encore careers as an important source of human talent to meet society’s most pressing needs. These initiatives include action–oriented research such as the 2008 MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures Encore Career Survey and Survey of Nonprofit Employers, developing new pathways such as encore fellowships, and promoting promising practices. This work builds upon her extensive experience in the nonprofit and public sectors – leading organizations, advocating for social justice, teaching and practicing law. She is currently a Trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a member of the Board of Overseers of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, and co–founder of the Eli J. Segal Citizen Leadership Program at Brandeis University. In addition she teaches on the Executive Education Faculty of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and Sloane School at MIT, and recently served on President Barack Obama’s Transition Team, preparing an Agency Review for the incoming administration. In her earlier career, Ms. Segal was the founding Legal Director of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, and subsequently served as the Fund’s President. She also served as Chair of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and as a trustee and consultant for other nonprofit organizations. In her prior public service Ms. Segal was Chair of the Federal Labor Relations Authority and Deputy Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Email: pnsegal [at] civicventures [dot] org

Richard Smith is the Office Manager at Civic Ventures. A graduate of San Jose State University, Smith has served as an office manager for a number of public and private organizations over the past 15 years. Most recently, he worked at the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Smith teaches tap dance and is a former cast member of the Broadway production 42nd Street and the San Francisco production of Beach Blanket Babylon.
Email: rsmith [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 415-222-7497

Stefanie Weiss is the Vice President for Communications at Civic Ventures. For several years, she wrote a column called "MidLife" for the Washington Post Health section. Prior to joining Civic Ventures, Weiss worked as Communications Director for the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland. Before joining the University, she worked for 16 years at the National Education Association in the human and civil rights department, the publications department, and the communications department. In her last post at NEA, she served as an editor of NEA Today, the organization's flagship publication with a circulation of 2.5 million. In addition, Weiss co-authored a book, Protecting the Freedom to Learn, published by People for the American Way. She also handled communications and public relations duties for the United Auto Workers Union, both in Detroit and during a groundbreaking organizing drive in Ithaca, New York. Weiss has a bachelor's degree in English and American studies from Cornell University.
Email: sweiss [at] civicventures [dot] org
Phone: 202-478-6151

Civic Ventures Fellows

David Cohen is a senior advisor to Experience Corps and a senior fellow at Civic Ventures. He is Co-Chair of the Advocacy Institute Board and one of its two founders. Cohen pioneered the Institute's work in its international capacity building programs where he facilitates workshop and strategy sessions. He was also an active participant in the Institute's Leadership for a Changing World Program, directing the Learning Initiatives aspect of the program, which provides funds for the learning of awardees and their colleagues to strengthen the overall purpose of an organization's program. Advocacy practitioners around the world have translated his writings on advocacy, civil society, and lobbying into many different languages. His writings have appeared as essays in college text books and in major U.S. newspaper. His most recent publication is a chapter in the Non-Profit Lobbying Guide (by Bob Smucker) entitled "Being A Public Interest Lobbyist Is Something To Write Home About." Cohen also co-authored Advocacy for Social Justice: A Global Action and Reflection Guide. He has been an advocate and strategist on many of the major social justice and political reform issues in the United States since the early 1960s. He played a leading role in the fight for Congress to end its support for the Vietnam War. From 1984 to 1992, he led the Professionals' Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control to stop the U.S. nuclear arms build-up by supporting arms control agreements and reducing the military budget. He served as president of Common Cause, the largest voluntary membership organization in the United States working on government accountability issues.
Email: dcohen [at] experiencecorps [dot] org
Phone: 202-777-7546

Andy Goodman is a communications consultant based in Los Angeles. After founding and running the American Comedy Network, a radio syndication company, he got tired of constantly hearing from friends in Hollywood how radio is a "weak sister" to television. So, in 1991 he moved to Los Angeles and launched a career as a television writer. During three seasons writing and co-producing the ABC-TV show "Dinosaurs" (plus co-writing the pilot episode of "The Nanny"), Goodman learned that TV writers are considered weak sisters by screenwriters and made the inevitable next move: He went to work for an environmental group. As president of the Environmental Media Association (EMA) from 1993 to 1998, he worked with members of the film and television industries, encouraging them to incorporate environmental messages into their work. Now an independent communications consultant and trainer, Goodman specializes in helping public interest groups and foundations reach more people more effectively. Current clients include the Campaign for America's Future, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Environmental Defense, and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He publishes a monthly newsletter, "free-range thinking," to share best practices in public interest communications, is author of the book, Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, and is currently working on a follow-up, Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes.
Email: andy [at] agoodmanonline [dot] com

Alex Harris is Professor of the Practice of Public Policy and Documentary Studies at Duke University and a co-founder of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. He is a distinguished photographer, editor, and writer who over the last 30 years has focused on the American Southwest and, more broadly, on aging in America. In four books – The Old Ones of New Mexico (1973 UNM Press), River of Traps: A Village Life, (1990 UNM Press), Red White Blue and God Bless You (1992 UNM Press), and Islands in Time (2000 Valencian Institute of Modern Art) – he has examined the world of the Ancianos, the elders in Hispanic communities in New Mexico. In the early 1990s Harris began to look more broadly at issues of aging in America. He published Old and On Their Own with Robert Coles in 1998. He also worked with Marc Freedman to provide photographs for Prime Time in 2000, which led to a broader collaboration with Civic Ventures making photographs for six publications in the Innovations series.
Email: aharris [at] acpub [dot] duke [dot] edu

Tom Munnecke is a veteran software designer, network agitator and creative thinker. He spent much of his 30 year-year software career as one of the lead architects for two large hospital information systems – the Veteran's Administration's VistA program and the Pentagon's CHCS. VistA was on the forefront of open-source systems, and is evolving into a widely used open-source hospital information system called World Vista. The technology boom of the 90's fueled his "encore career"; he's searching for system-changing approaches. He organizes his efforts around an essential question: what is the simplest thing I can do to create maximum benefit for humanity? He has focused his efforts recently on the Uplift Academy, which uses global networks, like the Web, to figure out what's working to better the world, and how to do more of it. His blog offers a running commentary of ideas. He joins Civic Ventures to help design our on- and offline "innovation network," linking people and organizations working to realize the "experience dividend." The idea is to figure out how to use the these networks to jumpstart the movement for social innovation in the second half of life and the possibilities for a corps of better world boomers.
Email: tom [at] givingspace [dot] org