Lisa Dunnigan, founder and CEO of Demonstrated Mastery, is a Leadership Transition Coach who draws on a 20+ year career in higher education and Fortune 500 companies where she traversed diverse organizational structures and has been the trusted coach for leaders who find themselves at an important inflection point in their careers. Lisa’s coaching practice helps leaders navigate the complexities of senior leadership and the often invisible transitions in expanded scope and expectations. Lisa is a Certified Executive Coach and a member of the International Coaching Federation and Center for Executive Coaching. She also holds certifications in Hogan Leadership Assessments, MHS Change and Influence Style Indicators, and is a certified DDI Master Facilitator. Her bespoke, uniquely tailored approach creates a platform for authentic exploration, discovery, awareness, and demonstration that centers the leader’s experience at the heart of their leadership.

Lisa holds an MBA with a focus on organizational leadership and brings extensive experience in leadership development, organizational onboarding frameworks, leading diversity hiring and retention initiatives, succession planning, and leading change. She has worked in higher education, manufacturing and financial services and has served on nonprofit boards.

Ben Gose has written for the Chronicle since 2002. He has done profiles of several major philanthropists, including a look at financier Stephen Schwarzman’s giving and as a leader in Buffalo who brought together powerful forces to fight racism and improve education.

Phyllis "Seven" Harris’ 25+ years of experience with nonprofits includes program management, fundraising and upper-level management positions. For many years, she has played a strong role as an advocate in Cleveland’s LGBTQ+ community.

With the executive leadership of Ms. Harris since 2012, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland has experienced transformational growth and expansion. Today, Center patrons enjoy expanded programming for everyone from teens to families to seniors in their Gordon Square facility. In 2015, the Center launched Pride in the CLE, a family-oriented and community-driven LGBTQ Pride festival that the group continues to produce annually. In June 2019, Ms. Harris and her team moved into a newly constructed facility that offers more space, accessibility, and versatility to serve the LGBTQ community.

Throughout her career, Ms. Harris has leveraged both her passion and her multi-faceted experience to lead the organization on a path of sustainable growth and vitality. Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Harris directed a major capital campaign for the Cleveland Sight Center, served as Vice President of Programs for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Cleveland and spearheaded youth initiatives at Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio. Her leadership in local nonprofit circles also extends to service on local and national nonprofit boards, including the Women of Color Foundation, Graffiti HeArt art museum and CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers.

She is a past recipient of the Cleveland Foundation’s Homer C. Wadsworth award, has completed a leadership fellowship with the Arcus Foundation and is a graduate of the 2019 class of Leadership Cleveland. She recently served as one of six co-chairs of the Transition Team for the newly elected City of Cleveland Mayor, Justin Bibb.

Kevin Miller, Ph.D., is the director of research and policy analysis at Independent Sector, where he manages research on the health of the nonprofit sector, surveys and public opinion polling, and commissioned research. His policy research career has focused on equity in the workforce and in higher education; he has conducted research on college affordability and student debt, paid leave policies, support for parenting college students, and pay equity. He has worked at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the City University of New York, the American Association of University Women, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and as a freelance consultant.

Kevin is mostly from the Midwest. He holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the Ohio State University and bachelor’s degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

John Ropar, PhD, is originally from Pittsburgh. He has a bachelor’s degree from John Carroll University, a Master’s in Community Counseling from Duquesne University, and a Doctorate in Counselor Education from The University of Akron. John was the director of the counseling center at John Carroll for 15 years before entering private practice in Hudson, Ohio. He has presented numerous programs and workshops on mindfulness and meditation to teacher’s groups and parents. In March 2015, he was a keynote speaker at the Ignatian Spirituality Project National Conference. Dr. Ropar has completed a two year training program in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and has been a spiritual director for eleven years. He is married to Eileen Goodall Ropar and has helped raise three wonderful stepdaughters.

Nicole Wallace is features editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She has written about innovation in the nonprofit world, charities’ use of data to improve their work and to boost fundraising, advanced technologies for social good and hybrid efforts at the intersection of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, such as social enterprise and impact investing.

Nicole spearheaded the Chronicle’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast and reported from India on the role of philanthropy in rebuilding after the South Asian tsunami. She started at the Chronicle in 1996 as an editorial assistant compiling "The Nonprofit Handbook."