Saturday, December 27, 2014 @ 10am
Guests:
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Carrie Zeisse
COO
United Way of Greater Portland
Sara Ruef Lindquist
CEO
How to create a culture of philanthropy –
Chief Operating Officer at United Way of Greater Portland, Carrie Zeisse holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Maine College of Art as well as a Masters of Business Administration from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Through this unique combination of left brain/right brain skills, she has spent the last twelve years in the non-profit sector supporting innovative, community-level change initiatives to advance the common good.
A native of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Carrie lived in New York, NY and Boston, MA for several years before returning home to join the United Way team in 2012. She currently oversees several key operational functions such as human resources, finance and information technology, as well as an innovative cross-functional team comprised of marketing and communications, story telling and volunteer engagement professionals. This team creates a vibrant experiences, messages, and media that provides community stakeholders with opportunities to forge strong connections to United Way’s impact work.
Prior to joining the United Way team, Carrie was the Vice President of Economic Development and Finance at the Boston Harbor Island Alliance, where she developed public-private partnerships and capital projects to help bring the Boston Harbor Islands National Park area to life for visitors and residents alike. This was after serving as the Director of Marketing and Strategy for the Trust for Public Land’s Conservation Vision and Conservation Finance services, where she launched the National Leadership in Conservation Awards program and the Conservation Almanac.
Carrie has served on the Board of Directors for Women Standing Together and is currently on the Finance Committee of Maine College of Art. She resides in Falmouth with her husband and daughter.
As CEO, Sarah Ruef Lindquist works with the Board and staff to develop and implement long-term strategies to increase the Fund’s philanthropic assets and grow the Fund’s impact and influence throughout Maine. In less than three years under her leadership, the fund’s assets have grown 52%, and the annual fund 60%.
Sarah has extensive experience in fundraising, grant making and building organizations’ fiscal efficiencies. She served as the senior gift planning consultant at Planning for Good, a Maine-based consulting practice she founded, and her law practice focused on estate and trust planning. She was vice president for Southern Maine at the Maine Community Foundation, and later served for over five years as vice president and senior administrative trust officer at Union Trust Company in Ellsworth and Camden, Maine.
She has served on the boards of many organizations in Maine and New Hampshire. She is a current trustee of Unity College, Maine Planned Giving Council and West Bay Rotary. Sarah received her B.A. from Southern Methodist University and her J.D. from Franklin Pierce Law Center, now the University of New Hampshire School of Law. She is a graduate of the Institute for Civil Leadership in Portland, Maine and attained her Certified Trust and Financial Advisor designation from the Institute of Certified Bankers of the American Bankers Association.
