Small Foundations: Practical Advice on Building a PRI Program with speakers Lisa Hiller, Helen Bader Foundation; Laura Mountcastle, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation and moderators Sandra Mikush, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation; and Kathryn Dunn, Helen Bader Foundation.
Small and medium-sized foundations face unique challenges in starting and growing PRI programs, with the need to balance increased impact with operating realities. Without the resources to build new infrastructure and staffing to manage a PRI operation, they must integrate PRIs into existing grant-making activities and capitalize on existing staffing and systems.
This workshop will examine how smaller foundations use internal people and systems - and external legal services - to establish the PRI "department." PRIs don’t have to be complicated to have impact and they don’t have to be complicated to manage internally- PRI Makers Network
Bio
Kathryn J. Dunn
Kathryn J. Dunn is Community Investment Officer at the Helen Bader Foundation, where she manages a $5 million fund that makes loans, loan guarantees, and equity investments in projects that further the Foundation’s charitable mission in Wisconsin. Dunn is responsible for evaluating investment proposals, recommending investments to the Foundation Board, and working with local business, nonprofit, and civic leaders on issues related to the economic health of Milwaukee’s low-income communities.
A Foundation employee since 1997, Dunn was named to her current position in 2003. She was previously the Foundation’s Program Officer for Economic Development, overseeing grants and building coalitions to improve business and employment opportunities in Milwaukee.
Before joining the Foundation, Dunn was vice president of the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation. She has also held positions at the Milwaukee Enterprise Center, a small-business incubator located in Milwaukee’s central city, and the Humane Society of Wisconsin.
Dunn is a board member of the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center, and she serves on the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s community investment advisory council and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s Milwaukee advisory council.
Dunn holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and public relations from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and she is a certified Economic Development Finance Professional by the National Development Council. She is a frequent speaker on business development concerns, including creative financing for small businesses, technical assistance programs for entrepreneurs, and minority business development. Dunn serves on a number of local and national planning committees for emerging economic development initiatives.
Lisa Hiller
Lisa Hiller is the Vice-President of Administration for the Helen Bader Foundation.
Sandra Mikush
Sandra Mikush is the assistant director of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she has worked for the last seven years. This job is her first as a grantmaker, having been recruited based on her previous work as a university fundraiser and a board member of community-based organizations in her hometown of Durham. Sandra is completing her fourth year on the NFG board of directors and currently serves as NFG's co-chair.
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