Turning Crisis Into Opportunity:
A Conversation With Two Nonprofit Sector Leaders

National Teleconference
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
2:00 pm-3:00pm Eastern Time

Bradford K. Smith is president of the Foundation Center, a national nonprofit service organization recognized as the nation's leading authority on organized philanthropy. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants around the world; issues a wide variety of print, electronic, and online information resources; conducts and publishes research on trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice; and offers an array of free and affordable educational programs.

Before joining the Foundation Center in 2008, Mr. Smith was president of the Oak Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, a major family foundation with programs and grant activities in 41 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Prior to joining the Oak Foundation he developed and led the Ford Foundation's Peace and Social Justice Program, the foundation's largest program area. During his ten-year tenure as vice president, the program provided hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations working on issues of human rights, international cooperation, governance, and civil society in the U.S. and around the world.

Mr. Smith has devoted his entire career to the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. He first joined the Ford Foundation as a program officer in its Brazil office. Prior to that, he directed the Brazil program of the Inter-American Foundation. At the start of his career, he worked for the YMCA of the USA, both in Costa Rica and New York, where he became manager for world development at its Center for International Management Studies.

Mr. Smith holds an M.A. in economics from the New School for Social Research in New York and a B.A. in anthropology and ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan.

Robert G. Ottenhoff was elected president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of GuideStar in September 2002.

GuideStar's mission is to "revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions, and encourages charitable giving." Through its web site, www.guidestar.org, GuideStar assembles and delivers comprehensive financial and programmatic reports on 1.7 million nonprofit organizations and foundations in the United States. Established in 1994, GuideStar is supported by revenues from a consortium of private foundations and earned revenues from sales of products and services and projects nearly 9 million user sessions in 2008 from nonprofit leaders, individual donors, institutional donors, and sector service providers. Mr. Ottenhoff frequently acts as a national spokesman on nonprofit sector issues. Time magazine called GuideStar "the nation's premier nonprofit database."

Before joining GuideStar, Mr. Ottenhoff spent several years as president of a high-tech company and operating an international consulting practice. He worked for more than 25 years in executive positions in the public broadcasting field, including serving as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the executive director of the New Jersey Public Broadcasting Authority, and founder and general manager of WBGO-FM, the New York-area jazz and news station. Mr. Ottenhoff currently serves on the board of directors of Vision TV, Grameen Foundation USA, and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. He is a graduate of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and received a master's degree from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Katherina M. Rosqueta is the founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy & Practice. The Center develops information and decision-making tools for effective philanthropy. By focusing on what is both actionable and evidence-based, the Center aims to define the efficient frontier of philanthropy, where nonprofit financing is not input-driven, or client-driven, but impact-driven.

Before accepting her appointment at the Center in the spring of 2006, Ms. Rosqueta was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where she served clients in the areas of strategy development, capability-building, and post-merger management. While at McKinsey, she led several employee volunteer initiatives to support consultant involvement on nonprofit boards. Prior to joining McKinsey, Ms. Rosqueta worked in community development, nonprofit management, and venture philanthropy. She served as a founding team member of New Schools Venture Fund; founding director of Board Match Plus, a San Francisco program dedicated to strengthening nonprofit boards; and program manager of Wells Fargo's Corporate Community Development Group. She has held numerous volunteer and civic leadership positions including board president of La Casa de las Madres (San Francisco's oldest and largest shelter for battered women and their children); chair of the United Way's Bay Area Week of Caring, and co-founder and executive committee member of the Women's MBA Network.

Her work and comments have been cited in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Money Magazine, and the International Herald Tribune. She is a frequent speaker on issues of social impact management and philanthropy and has lectured at the Wharton Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of California Haas School of Business, and the University of San Francisco's Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management. She received her B.A. cum laude from Yale University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.