The 5 Nonprofit Business Models revealed
Business Model #1
Nonprofit Earned Income:
The Tangled Web of its Possibilities and Promise
Meet Our Co-Hosts and Panelists
Hilda Polanco
Managing Partner, BDO FMA
Hilda Polanco founded Fiscal Management Associates in 1999, which became BDO FMA in 2021. BDO FMA has one of the largest client bases of nonprofits in the country, spanning all types and sizes of organizations. Despite the depth and breadth of all that, Hilda somehow always has her fingers on the pulses of those organizations. She delivers training to the staff of nonprofits and supports grantmaker strategies to encourage financial resilience in their grantees. Hilda has been published widely on various topics in nonprofit fiscal management and leads FMA’s nationwide staff in partnerships that build a community around fiscal management best practices.
Dana Britto
Consultant to nonprofits and foundations and moderator at Nonprofit Financial Commons
Dana (she/her) has spent the past 16 years working with and for nonprofits and foundations across the country to help strengthen their financial and operational infrastructure, practices, systems and strategies to maximize impact and build sustainability. As a lender, consultant and Board Treasurer, Dana has spent the majority of her career providing financial services and delivering consulting engagements, group workshops, and one-on-one coaching aimed at supporting nonprofit leaders in building capacity for effective, strategic financial management. As a long-time champion for advancing greater equity within nonprofit management and philanthropic practices, Dana remains a steadfast supporter and thought-partner to nonprofit leaders working to advance justice and equitable systems-change.
John MacIntosh
Managing Partner, Sea Change Capital Partners
John joined SeaChange in 2008 in the hope of putting his transactional skills and finance experience to use for good. Although SeaChange has evolved a great deal over the intervening years, he is as excited as ever by what we do and feels privileged to work with entrepreneurial colleagues and committed funders to help nonprofits — from the largest “battle ships” to the smallest, grass-roots organizations — do their vital work. John came to SeaChange by way of a mid-life Masters in Philosophy and Public Policy at the London School of Economics. Prior to LSE, he was a partner at Warburg Pincus (a global private equity firm) in New York, Tokyo, and London; a software engineer in Tokyo; and a management consultant at Oliver Wyman in New York. In addition to his work at SeaChange, John serves as a trustee of the Putney School, the Brooklyn Heights Association, and the John Jay College Foundation. John grew up in Canada but moved to the United States to attend Princeton where he got an engineering degree and met his wife. They have four grown children and live in Brooklyn where he is the goal-keeper for Heights FC.
Shawna Smith
Executive Director, Hope Builders
Shawna Smith is the executive director of Hope Builders. Over more than twenty-five years she has lead the development of numerous strategic initiatives including the organization’s nationally recognized model for workforce development and educational pathway programming. In 2011, she founded a successful employment social enterprise and licensed general contracting venture that created jobs for participants completing Hope Builders’ training programs. In 2019, she relaunched the enterprise, Hope Builders Career Connections, as a revenue generating staffing agency. Hope Builders has grown significantly during her tenure, including expanding operations across Orange County, California. Shawna received her degree in English from Santa Clara University. Additionally, she served as a Marano Fellow with the Aspen Institute from 2006-2007. She has been honored as a Woman of Distinction for California Assembly Districts 29 and 69. She received the Community Inspiration Award from the USC School of Social Work in 2015 and was named a 40 Under 40 Orange County by the OC Metro in 2012.