Our Board of Directors

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Tom Raffa is the President and founder of Raffa, P.C., a consulting, accounting, and technology firm started in 1984 with over 300 professionals dedicated to serving the nonprofit community. Raffa, P.C. provides services including audits, tax, consulting, technology, and outsourcing to over 500 nonprofit clients.  Tom has received the Volunteer Achievement Award from the Accountants for the Public Interest, the Smart CPA from the Washington Smart CEO magazine, and was a finalist for the 2007 Community Service Award. He has written articles for various national publications including The Nonprofit Quarterly, The Nonprofit Times, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, covering various topics that affect the nonprofit sector. See Tom’s speech at Shift Series here.

Barbara Crocker is an advocate for education who served as President of the Board of Gulf Stream School and various philanthropic entities in Florida, spanning the hospital and arts sectors. Her professional career began at Chemical Bank and continued in real estate equities, followed by owning and operating a children’s clothing store in Boca Raton. As a 1975 graduate of Georgetown University, she has stayed close to the University community by serving on the Board of Regents, the College Board of Advisors, the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics Board of Advisors, the Alumni Admissions Program Board and the Georgetown Scholarship Program Board. In 2008, she received the John Carroll Award, Georgetown’s most prestigious honor for service and leadership.

Leslie Thurman directs outreach initiatives at Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division that focuses on community outreach, volunteerism and special projects aligning the Studio with nonprofit and NGO partners. Prior to joining the  Studio, Leslie was Director of the William Morris Agency Foundation, where she developed and launched the initial mission and focus, as well as advised top-tier individual and corporate clients on program related investments. She directed development, communications and outreach for a $120 million international humanitarian agency, International Medical Corps.

Jen Berman is VP of Marketing at National Geographic where she leads the company’s global media efforts. She has over 20 years’ experience in media and marketing, most recently as executive director of creative services for The New Yorker, where she ran day-to-day integrated marketing operations, developed brand positioning strategies and materials, and managed numerous events. Prior to her role at The New Yorker, she worked in the Conde Nast marketing departments of GQ and Vanity Fair. She also has editorial experience as senior editor at BOMB magazine and freelance writing experience as a book and film reviewer for such publications as The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times and Bookforum.

Rich Tafel has provided strategic policy advice to nonprofits for the last decade on a variety of causes, including, AIDS programs for Africa, civil rights programs Latin America; and education and health care reform in the United States. He is a guest lecturer at Johns Hopkins University for the Urban Health and Advocacy. Prior to this, Rich founded the national office of Log Cabin Republicans in 1993. At the height of the culture wars he debated the likes of the Reverend Jerry Fallwell on Larry King Live and other opponents of gay equality. He has appeared on most major political TV programs and fought for appropriate AIDS funding and equality for gays and lesbians. During his tenure, Log Cabin Republicans went from an unknown entity to a well known brand in American political life.

Arthur Woods co-founded the Compass Fellowship and has remained active in the Compass Community. He is now a Founding Partner at social impact design firm, Imperative, where he leads the company’s operations. Previously he led operations for YouTube EDU at Google where he developed the first scalable quality review process for the onboarding of new educational content to YouTube, then oversaw operations of YouTube for Schools. He later managed the development of YouTube’s first guide for education and organized YouTube’s inaugural Education Summit. Arthur studied Operations and information Management at Georgetown University and Project Management at Stanford University. He also sits on the Boards of the Sierra Institute and Georgetown Technology Alliance.

Aaron Hollub is the Commercial Business Advisor for Global Infrastructure at NYSE Euronext. He previously spent two years working on the trading floor of NYSE. Aaron founded Helping Hands of Pinecrest, providing after school programming for students in South Florida’s underprivileged communities. Before joining Compass, he helped launch Mission Three, a farmer’s market delivery service that won multiple international awards and expanded to three college markets. Aaron studied Operations and Information Management and Accounting at Georgetown University. His work has been featured in the Miami Herald, the Pinecrest Tribune and the Wishbook Campaign. He is  a member of the Junior Council and Steering Committee at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Stephen Gershman is a Health IT Consultant at Arcadia Solutions, where he on the forefront of implementing preventative care in hospitals and community health centers.  Stephen has a B.A. from Tufts University in International Relations with a minor in Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies, and attended three universities in Buenos Aires, Argentina over a six month residency.  In 2010, he brought the Compass Fellowship to Boston, and has mentored dozens of students through Compass and teaching at Tufts.  Stephen has dedicated time to a number of organizations and aims, including data management, urban revitalization, reduction of risk advocacy, and product marketing.

Neil Shah

Michael Durante was a 2010 Georgetown University graduate and a Mentor for the inaugural Compass Fellowship program. He has since been a wholesale haberdasher, a cafe cook, an environmental activist, and a Compass staff member. Mike aspires to farm professionally, and is beginning his agricultural education as an on-farm apprentice.

William Huster