The nonprofits I'm involved with and why

It’s always been important to me to be involved in helping others, but my life took a course correction when I went through Leadership Atlanta in 2012-13. Since then, I’ve been on a bit of a mission to make sure I’m using my abilities to do more good.

To that end, I’ve recently shifted the community efforts I’m involved in to be more focused on the things I’m passionate about and where I can personally make the most impact.

Boards I’m on:

• Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce – I’m as passionate as anyone about my city. Being on this board allows me to have influence on helping Atlanta reach its full potential.
• Central Outreach & Advocacy Center – Ending homelessness is the area of community service that I am most passionate about. This organization is doing amazing work to help get Atlantans off the street.
• CCAI Adoption Services – This is the adoption agency we used for our first Chinese adoption in 2011. I love this organization’s efforts to help kids find families to love them.

Organizations I sit on committes for:

• Zoo Atlanta – I’m on the Leadership Council and Conservation Society for Zoo Atlanta. I love our Zoo, and the CEO, Raymon King, is a good friend. It brings me great joy doing what little I can to help make our Zoo one of the best in the nation.
• American Marketing Association – I sit on the Executive Advisory Board for the Atlanta chapter. It’s a great group, and I enjoy helping figure out ways to magnify Atlanta’s marketing awareness and prowess.

Boards I’ve recently dropped off of:

• The Children’s Museum of Atlanta – I loved my six years on this board. When I left, I was added to the Executive Board which has a manageable two meetings per year. I’m thrilled to stay involved in this way.
• Junior Achievement – Similar to the Children’s Museum, I was on the JA board for many years (7) and recently decided to drop off. As an alumni of the board, I can stay involved as I see fit, which is great because I didn’t want to completely disengage. This is truly one of Atlanta’s great nonprofit efforts and the CEO, Jack Harris, is the best there is.
• Venture Atlanta – I just finished my two year term on this board and loved seeing the inner workings of this great organization. Stunning level of talent among the board, and I’ll miss seeing them on a regular basis, but I look forward to continuing to attend the event each year!

Nonprofits / Efforts I’ve created:

• Advice For Good – Give an hour of time to community service, get an hour of advice from an advisor. This I run on my own, though it takes very little management. I started this in 2013.
• Match Atlanta – Connecting markters with nonprofits. I selected Christine Walker to be the Executive Director of Match earlier this year and we’re in the process of reimaging what this organization should be. I started this in 2013.
• 48in48 – Helping 48 nonprofits in 48 hours through hackathon-sytle events. I founded this nonprofit in 2015 with Adam Walker and in our first event (October in Atlanta) we had 150 volunteers come together to create 48 nonprofit websites in 48 hours. It was a huge success and we’re looking to go national next year.
• Homegrown – Teaching homeless Veterans to write computer code. 2015 was the pilot year for Homegrown, with the goal of raising funds in 2016 to put a true structure around this effort. Of all the things I’ve started, this one could have the biggest impact of all of them.