About Bianca Alston

Bianca D. Alston is a millennial change agent and eternal optimist. She currently serves as Program Officer at the New York Women’s Foundation. Bianca comes to NYWF from the Arcus Foundation where she was Finance and Operations Assistant. In that role, she directly supported the Foundation’s operations, human resources and grants management teams. Prior to Arcus, Bianca served as the Membership and Program Assistant at ABFE. Bianca has been an EPIP member since 2014 and has served as an EPIP-NY Chapter Leader and on EPIP’s conference planning committee. She also serves on the Board for the New York Chapter of the National Alumnae Association of Spelman College. Bianca earned her Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven and her Bachelors of the Arts degree in Philosophy from Spelman College. Bianca is native to and resides in Brooklyn, New York.

About Ethan Kahn

Ethan has close to 20 years of experience delivering audit, accounting and consulting services to a range of clients, particularly in the not-for-profit sector. He provides clear and sound advice to finance, senior management and Boards of Directors.

Ethan is an expert in helping clients overcome strategic planning challenges, as well as performing internal audits, risk assessments, ensuring compliance, assisting with mergers and acquisitions, reviewing internal control structures and preparing audit packages for the annual audit. He has a successful track record of helping clients achieve their goals in a timely and professional manner.

Ethan has completed financial statement audits, tax filings and financial consulting projects for organizations ranging from income of $50,000 to $210,000,000—including those requiring audits pursuant to OMB Circular A-133/UGG. He also has extensive experience in government funding and cost reports including in SED funding, CFR preparation and reporting and its respective rate setting methodology and compliance requirements. He has developed specific expertise in this area.

Other services include: assessing grant reimbursements, trend analysis, agency-wide budgeting, assisting with government audits, efficiency analyses, trainings (fiscal, program and board), building business models, quality control, oversight of finance departments and outsourced fiscal staff.

Ethan’s effective and timely approach has earned many trusted and loyal client relationships, and his strategic value added approach have significantly improved his clients’ operations and benefited their organizations as a whole.

Prior to joining Mazars, Ethan led his own accounting and advisory practice. He has also worked at large regional firms servicing the not-for-profit industry.

Ethan received his B.S. in Accounting from Touro College. Ethan has chaired the Tax Exempt Organizations Committee for the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA) for three consecutive terms, chaired the NYSCCPA Tax Exempt Organizations conference for five consecutive years and testified before the New York State Senate – assisting them in crafting the NYS Nonprofit corporate laws. Ethan also co-authored a professional comment letter on behalf of the New York State Society for CPAs that, in corroboration with other such letters, successfully simplified the extension process country-wide for not-for-profit organizations. He is the key trainer for the Mayor’s office, the Foundation Center and has presented at many other venues such as the NYC BAR Association, HOSTOS Community College and The New York State Society for CPAs, The Staten Island Museum and many other venues. Ethan has a passion to help create a better environment for nonprofits and continues to be a thought leader in the not-for-profit sector through publication of articles in accounting journals and industry journals.

About Tracy Kaufman

Tracy Kaufman is an Educational Programming Manager at Candid, leading workshops related to nonprofit sustainability, management, fundraising, and other essential issues relevant to philanthropy and the social sector. Her trainings primarily serve nonprofit professionals, but also audiences comprised of funders, artists, students, and academics. Tracy is an instructor for Candid’s three-day Proposal Writing Boot Camp and teaches a popular workshop on outcomes and measurement. As one of Candid’s training experts, webinar instructors, and a frequent public speaker, she has spoken at conferences, most notably the United Nations, and has represented Candid on numerous panel discussions.

In addition, Tracy provides training and support to Candid Community partners – libraries, nonprofit resource centers and other institutions – and provides philanthropy and fundraising information services to individuals and local organizations. Her relationship with Candid began in 2007, when she began working for Foundation Center, one of Candid’s two legacy organizations. Previously, Tracy held positions with the Association of American Publishers and New York Public Library. Tracy earned her Bachelors of Arts in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, and studied Library and Information Science at the Pratt Institute.

About Crystal Mandler

As director of business insight, Crystal oversees Foundation Center’s customer engagement and business systems, and is spearheading project intelligence and insight initiatives. Before joining the Financial Strategy team, Crystal held various technology roles at Foundation Center, leading multiple system migrations to improve the look, feel, and functionality of the organization’s front and back-end systems. Most recently, Crystal has led the charge in legacy modernization of Foundation Center’s subscriptions, CRM, eCommerce, financials, and order processing systems.

Prior to joining Foundation Center, Crystal worked as a research associate at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Crystal holds a B.A. in literature and anthropology from Bennington College and an M.F.A. in fiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

About Elizabeth (Liz) Ngonzi, MMH (she/her)

Liz is an award-winning social entrepreneur and educator, and an international speaker and executive coach, who has the privilege of helping purpose-led institutions and individuals worldwide to accomplish the seemingly impossible - developing an ecosystem of aligned stakeholders to help them amplify their impact on the world.

Liz founded The International Social Impact Institute® in 2020 to help institutions and individuals access the resources, knowledge and networks that would enable them to clarify and share their story to build an ecosystem of like-minded stakeholders with whom they can collaborate to make the world more equitable and sustainable.  Since its founding, The Institute has been fortunate to fulfill its mission through partnerships with organizations worldwide, such as Candid; CIVICUS; Cornell University; GivingTuesday; the JCC Association of North America; the King Baudouin Foundation United States; Nelson Mandela University; the Obama Foundation; and the USAID Power Africa Women in African Power initiative, among others.

Liz has been the turnaround CEO of Afrika Tikkun USA, the North America arm of a Nelson Mandela-endorsed and South Africa-based nonprofit organization; has been an invited member of the U.S. Speaker Program at the U.S. Department of State; has founded and run an international boutique consulting firm that advised academic institutions, associations, human rights and youth development organizations, and multilateral agencies; and has excelled in various corporate roles, including as a business consulting manager with a “Big 4” consulting firm.

She is a recipient of an NYU SPS 2021 Teaching Excellence Award; a 2019 cohort member of the “Most Influential People of African Descent” (MIPAD 100); a 2017 recipient of the African Diaspora Awards “Advocate of the Year” Award; was featured in 2016 by WeWork Creator Magazine as one of its “40 Over 40” leaders; and, since 2011, has been a member of the invitation-only President’s Council of Cornell Women.

Dedicated to educating others, Liz is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.  She holds a Master of Management in Hospitality degree in Services Marketing from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration; a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from the Syracuse University iSchool; and graduated from the United Nations International School which she attended K-12.

About Leticia Peguero

Leticia brings over 20 years of experience in social justice programming and philanthropy to her role at the Andrus Family Fund. She has dedicated her career to issues related to equity and justice for young people and women with the goal of building capacity in underserved and oppressed communities and the organizations that serve them. Leticia has worked at organizations throughout the Tristate area such as the Posse Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–LFP Program, Planned Parenthood of New York City, the Door and the Adolescent AIDS Program.

She is a graduate of one of the country’s top leadership program—the National Urban Fellows. Leticia graduated with honors with a MPA from the School of Public Service at Baruch College–City University of New York and has a BA from Fordham University.

Outside of her role at AFF Leticia spends a lot of time working and thinking about the arts (dance was her first love). She helps run Areytos Performance Works—a dance theatre company working at the crossroads of African-Caribbean forms, contemporary modern dance and performance art.

About Isaac Shalev

Isaac is the president and founder of Sage70, Inc. Isaac brings over a decade of experience in the non-profit and for-profit venture ecosystems. Isaac has served as Executive Director of Storahtelling, COO of Birthright Israel NEXT and is an experienced technologist and strategist.

About Alicin Williamson

Alicin Williamson leads The Raben Group’s New York office, where she draws on her diverse experience conceiving of and managing large-scale initiatives in government affairs, media strategy, employee engagement, brand reputation, and communications to help advance her clients’ missions.

Diversity and inclusion play a central role in Alicin’s own mission, and she is a leader in that work for The Raben Group. Her clients range multinational corporations to national and local non-profit organizations.

Alicin partners with client senior leadership and management on vision alignment, thought leadership, and diversity and inclusion. She helped craft Airbnb’s original public policy strategy and their diversity work, worked with the board of NAMIC to create systems change and organizational redesign as they experienced a leadership transition. Alicin has led projects developing and implementing communications plans regarding key issues on diversity both externally and internally.

Prior to joining Raben, Alicin built her career fostering public affairs and corporate social responsibilities initiatives. She served as a Senior VP at MTV Networks and Viacom where she created the company’s Corporate Responsibility and Public Affairs department and helped build the Office of Global Inclusion to increase company visibility in diverse communities and aid diversity recruitment efforts. Alicin also partnered with Viacom Government Affairs, building coalitions between advocacy groups and corporate relations in support of the company’s legislative agenda and oversaw employee engagement.

As a program director and Senior Program Officer at The Fund for the City of New York, Alicin provided technical assistance and capacity building to city agencies and nonprofit youth-serving organizations.

Alicin has been recognized with a commendation from the City of New York for women’s leadership, induction to the YWCA Academy of Women Leaders, and a “Woman of Influence” award from Essence Magazine and several recognitions from the cable and telecommunications industry.

Alicin serves on the board executive committees of the New York Urban League, Food Research and Action Center and as board chair of All Souls School. She previously was on the board of NAMIC and the USO.

About Zohra Zori

Zohra is the Vice President of Networks at Candid, the world’s leading provider of data and capacity building services for the social sector. Through research, collaboration, and training, Candid connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to do it. Zohra oversees the organization’s Funding Information Network of 400+ worldwide affiliate locations, the GrantSpace.org learning site, and a range of training and advisory programs delivered by teams across Candid’s six offices. Together, this suite of “bricks and clicks” services connects social sector organizations to funding and knowledge resources in their communities, in person, and online. Prior to joining Foundation Center, Zohra was the President of Global Management Challenge USA, the world’s largest strategy and management (competition-based) training simulation platform, with operations in 40 countries and an extensive pipeline of more than 500,000 participants from the corporate and higher education sectors.

Zohra launched her career at Enactus, a global community of student, academic, and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better, more sustainable world. Her roles with the organization included Program Development Director, Regional Vice President of International Programs, and Vice President of Enactus Worldwide. Zohra is multilingual, has traveled to more than 50 countries, serves as advisor to multiple organizations, and enjoys exploring roads less traveled.