Speaker Bios

Dr. Susan Aloi is an Associate Professor at Davis & Elkins College, where she teaches courses in management and marketing and chairs the Division of Business & Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Aloi is committed to guiding students to learn by doing, applying course content to real-life projects in the community. Aloi is active is several community development-focused nonprofit organizations across West Virginia

Wendy Burtner is a nonprofit leader, trusted advisor and consultant with 30+ years of experience leading organizations through transitions and building strong foundations for growth. She spent half of that time in the “C” suite of small and midsized nonprofits. She has a wide range of experience across the nonprofit sector including leadership roles in corporate philanthropy and arts administration, as well as health, human services and economic and workforce development. She was a member of the start up teams at GuideStar (now Candid), The CarMax Corporate Foundation, and the Early Childhood Initiative. Wendy loves working with new nonprofit leaders to show them that they can master the unique balancing act of nonprofit management and leverage that to lead high-impact organizations. She is the treasurer of the board of the Burtner House Restoration Society – helping to keep her great-great-great-great-grandfather’s legacy alive – and a board member with Venture Outdoors, Seachange and Pittsburgh SHOT. Specifics of Wendy’s professional experience can be found on LinkedIn.

Margaret Chapman is a strategic advisor and co-founder of JaM Strategies with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations strengthen finance, operations, fundraising, and programmatic strategy. She has advised groups at all stages, from national campaigns and large institutions like The Pew Charitable Trusts and The George Washington University Cancer Institute to small nonprofits and start-ups. Her work emphasizes sustainable growth, governance, and building on organizational strengths.

Michele has been working with nonprofits for the past decade, funding, designing, and evaluating programs, training program staff, and supporting Senior Leadership teams in Minnesota, Colorado, D.C., Haiti, and Bolivia. Her passion for this work began at 20, when she was a Davis Projects for Peace Grantee, co-managing water provision programming in Haiti.  She then worked for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Legislative Aide and for the U.S. State Department as a contractor designing educational programming for foreign delegations.

Joshua Higginbotham grew up on a farm in rural West Virginia as the youngest of four children and the son of a welder. No one in his immediate family had ever attended college and none had left his home town—until he decided to pursue his own American Dream. 

Over the years, Joshua Higginbotham has learned that hard work pays off. He’s always had an interest in politics and has been involved in the community from a very young age. He served as a Student Ambassador in six European countries at age 15, worked as a Page in the United States Senate at 16, and was the President of West Virginia DECA & ran for their National President the same year. At age 19, he ran a successful campaign to become the youngest Delegate in the West Virginia Legislature in 2016. 

Jimmy Lemon serves as Chief Operations Officer at Bullseye Total Media, a full-service creative and advertising agency in Huntington, West Virginia, and is a certified Working Genius facilitator. A former pastor, he brings a background in leading people and organizations through growth and change to his work helping teams better understand how they’re wired to work, collaborate, and contribute. Jimmy is also active in the community, serving on several nonprofit boards and staying involved in organizations across the region.

Shelley Maddex is the Founder of The Birdsong Collaborative, a boutique consulting firm that partners with mission-driven organizations and communities to find and pursue grant opportunities to enhance sustainability and enable operations. Having led formal fundraising programs at institutions across the country over the past 30 years, she has secured more than $60 million in private grants from local, regional, and national funders. That work taught her how to be strategic about identifying potential partners, where to invest precious time for the greatest impact, and how to shape proposals that respond to funders’ goals. Today Shelley works with organizations seeking to increase corporate and foundation philanthropy, and is always glad to talk with those rethinking how they approach private funders.

Stephanie Masters is co-founder and partner at Nonprofit SideKick and a certified CliftonStrengths ™ Coach. She is a Human Resources Professional with over 28 years experience focusing on organizational and leadership development. She has worked in the nonprofit sector in human services, economic renewal, historic preservation and education. Stephanie has created and led customized leadership development programming initiatives for large corporations and small to midsize nonprofits. For the past 15 years, Stephanie has been a leadership facilitator for several community-based leadership development programs including Leadership Washington County, Leadership Pittsburgh and Leadership Somerset. She has actively coached and developed over 500 leaders through these programs. Steph is the President of the board of the Peters Township Chamber of Commerce and a board member with the Mon Valley Alliance. Specifics of Stephanie’s professional experience can be found on LinkedIn.

Amy McCallister-Ethel is a communications and public relations professional with more than 22 years of experience spanning nonprofit, higher education, technology, and public relations. A graduate of Marshall University with a BA in Public Relations/Journalism, Amy has built her career around connecting organizations with the people and communities they serve.

Dave Moss founded Unfunded List in 2015 to address the gap between ambitious nonprofits and the philanthropy sector’s limited funding conversations. After a decade working with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, he recognized the need for better feedback in grantmaking and founded Unfunded List which is now relied on by hundreds of nonprofits and evaluators worldwide. He is also the host of Open Door Philanthropy, a podcast featuring candid discussions about giving, funding trends and innovations.

Hashim Pashtun, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary researcher, and Social Return on Investment (SROI) practitioner specializing in impact evaluation, sustainability, infrastructure planning, and economic development. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Ohio University, where his research focused on sustainable development and matrices to assist in project prioritization, planning and management. Dr. Pashtun has led and contributed to numerous SROI and impact evaluation projects across workforce development, education, transportation, public health, environmental sustainability, and community development throughout Appalachia, the Midwest and also worked on International projects. His experience spans academia, nonprofit organizations, government, private industry, and international development, including research work with the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE). A TEDx speaker fluent in multiple languages, he brings a cross-disciplinary perspective to measuring social, environmental, and economic outcomes and advancing evidence-based decision-making for public and community investments.

Beth G. Raps, PhD has taught fundraising for over 40 years and been a certified moneycoach for 14. She loves teaching people how to raise more money and how healing our relationship with money helps us do that in our personal and professional lives. She’s also grateful to do the on-the-ground fundraising training she gets to offer for WVNPA in diverse parts of West Virginia. In addition to being a coach and consultant, she’s a published philosopher, poet, French translator, editor, and mother of one. Find out more at: https://raisingclarity.com/learn-more-about-our-work/

Aoife Ryle has spent the past decade in the nonprofit sphere, starting when she left a Bioengineering career to help increase educational equity and workforce access. Her experience as a first-generation immigrant to the United States shaped her desire to create opportunities and space for marginalized individuals.

Elise Woodworth, MBA, is a leadership strategist and executive coach. As the creator of the Business Not Battle framework, she helps leaders turn strategy into momentum by clarifying next steps, strengthening decision‑making, and removing innovation barriers. Elise works with executives, founders, and nonprofit boards to build resilient cultures and practical execution roadmaps. A veteran and best‑selling author, she believes that to strengthen your organization you must strengthen your leaders, and to do that, you must get them mission‑focused. You must get them in business, not battle.