Neighborhood Funders Group
1301 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20036

Phone: 202-833-4690
E-Mail: nfg@nfg.org
Fax: 202-833-4694

Staff

Garland Yates
Interim Executive Director
(202) 833-4690 x4
garland@nfg.org

Garland Yates is the interim Executive Director of Neighborhood Funders Group. Until his retirement in December 2005, Garland Yates was a Senior Associate of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private philanthropy dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children in the United States. Garland is particularly dedicated to techniques and strategies that build the capacity of low-income communities to develop and guide place-based comprehensive community initiatives.  While at the Casey Foundation, his responsibilities included overseeing the Foundation’s Rebuilding Communities Initiative (RCI), a seven-year comprehensive community building initiative. Subsequent to that, he managed the Foundation’s place-based work in Making Connections sites in three cities, including Denver, Detroit and Boston. In addition to grant making activities in local communities, he also developed a technical assistance strategy for supporting local community mobilization efforts. In that role, Garland was responsible for recruiting and leading a team of highly recognized consultants with extensive histories and experience in designing and successfully carrying out a wide range of local and regional organizing and mobilization strategies. In this role, he also was responsible for planning conferences and other initiative meetings, making grants that helped expand the knowledge of comprehensive initiatives, and grants that helped strengthen the capacity of the community building field in general

Prior to joining the Foundation in January 1995, Garland was a Senior Organizational Development Counselor at the Management Assistance Group and was responsible for providing organizational development and management assistance to social justice oriented non-profit organizations at the national level and in local communities. While there, Garland was also helped train and strengthen the capacity of grassroots leaders in small neighborhood organizations and often credited for increasing the amount of core operational support from philanthropic organizations.  Prior to that, Garland served as the Eastern Regional Director for Center for Community Change, a national non-profit technical assistance organization in Washington, D. C. The Center provided a wide range of capacity building and organizational strengthening technical assistance to low income community-based organizations, primarily in minority communities in the U. S. While at the center however, Garland helped the C. S. Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan establish a grant-making program in South Africa.  

 arland has served on the boards of many organizations, including the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Management Assistance Group, the Discount Foundation and on an advisory committee to the Fund for Neighborhood Initiatives of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  He currently works with philanthropic organizations in several communities across the U. S. and Canada to help design and strengthen local place-based funding strategies to improve conditions in poor communities. He has also advised other U. S. Foundations on setting up community development funding strategies in post-apartheid South Africa. Following the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he designed a funding strategy, which supported direct action by residents in the reconstruction of New Orleans. In his retirement, Garland is currently advising the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas, and a number of Canadian United Way affiliates how to help communities build local capacity to change conditions

India King-Hamilton is the Operations Manager of the Neighborhood Funders Group.  India has over 10 years of office management experience with nonprofit organizations.  Prior to NFG, India worked as the Staff Development Specialist with NeighborWorks America.  Here she was able to assist with streamlining the work process for NWA Training events and registrations.  She also coordinated staff events to include orientations and retreats.   India was afforded the opportunity to create and implement administrative procedures and guidelines for the Legal & Compliance department of Morgan Stanley’s Baltimore office.  India has also volunteered as liaison for faith based organizations to partner with local businesses to receive in- kind donations.  The donations helped cultivate youth programs, health expos, and provided resources for families in the community.  She has also assisted faith-based organizations with opening food pantries for the community.

Dania Rajendra
Program Coordinator for the Working Group on Labor and Community Partnerships
202-833-4690 x6

dania@nfg.org
daniarajendra.net

Dania Rajendra is the Program Coordinator for NFG's Working Group on Labor and Community Partnerships (WGLCP).  A writer, social justice strategist and journalist, Dania began her work with NFG as a consultant for WGLCP in August 2010.  Prior to this, she was the director of internal communications at the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY, an AFT local of 22,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York; her reporting there won the top prize in labor journalism in 2008. In addition to her work in the labor movements on the East Coast and in Minnesota, she has worked for immigrant’s rights, in the arts, and on the 2004 election cycle. Dania holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Spalding University in Louisville, KY and is at work on a certificate in culinary arts at Kingsborough Community College. She splits her time between Brooklyn, NY, and Baltimore, MD.

The Balcom Group
Consultants
804-580-8353
martib@thebalcomgroup.com

The Balcom Group coordinates NFG's Annual Conference. The Balcom Group is a women owned and operated conference planning and management company. For over 15 years, The Balcom Group has been dedicated to providing quality services to non-profit organizations, associations and other agencies at affordable costs. Their work enables clients to receive superior meeting and conference management services that facilitate furthering their organization's mission and allows The Balcom Group's staff the opportunity to work with people that champion issues that affect societal change. Everyone who has ever planned a meeting, conference, or event without the assistance of an outside firm is aware of the strain on the everyday operation of the organization. The Balcom Group allows NFG staff to direct their energy towards their assigned responsibilities and eliminates staff organization disruptions. Marti Balcom is the President and Founder of The Balcom Group. Terry Balcom is the Vice President of Technology for The Balcom Group. Harriette Lott is the Vice President of Operations for The Balcom Group. Tina Brown is the Manager of Convention Services.