Jodi Bender Sweeney
Jodi Bender Sweeney counsels nonprofits on a full range of resource development needs. Her specialty is helping education foundations develop and grow to meet the extra-budgetary needs of school districts.
She served as President of the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools, an organization that she founded in 2000. The foundation raises funds for creative and innovative projects in the city’s Metropolitan School District and is considered a national model for innovative programming, such as the Individual School Endowment Initiative. With a goal of $100,000, the foundation raised $900,000 in it first year and more than $4 million from 2000 – 2006. It has continued this rapid growth under new leadership since Ms. Sweeney left to start The Sweeney Group and Foundation Excellence.
Her career includes service as Manager of Community Relations for GATX Corporation, Chicago, and 10 years as program officer for the Madison Community Foundation. She has also served as Executive Director for the Madison, WI Capital Fund Raising Committee where she coordinated and supported the capital campaign planning for nonprofits in the region.
She is a founding member of the Advisory Committee for the National School Foundation Association (NSFA) and past Vice President of the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ (AFP) Madison Wisconsin Chapter. She assisted in the development of TeamTrack, a national distance education nonprofit management education series. She is a member of the founding steering committee of the Wisconsin State Association of Non-Profits, a founding member of the Junior League of Madison and a past member of the Allocations Committee of United Way of Dane County.
Ms. Sweeney is the author of “Are You Ready for a Capital Campaign,” published in Nonprofit World Magazine, and a leader in the public school education foundation movement.
E. Jane Gallucci
Jane Gallucci is widely known for her passionate beliefs about public education. She feels that schools must tell their success stories in order to preserve public education, to increase funding for education, to build parental and business support for education, and ultimately, to help all students achieve.
As president of the National School Boards Association, she led a campaign called Snapshots of Success that featured positive stories and images about what’s right in our public schools. She believes that schools need to have a success mentality, not a survival mentality.
Gallucci knows schools well. She served as a guidance counselor in Pinellas County Schools, Florida, and was later elected to the Pinellas County Board of Education where she served for 12 years. She also served on the school board of Rockaway Boro Public Schools in New Jersey.
At the national level, she has served on the National School Boards Foundation Board and chaired numerous committees.
Locally, Gallucci serves on numerous boards in Pinellas County including the YWCA, Rotary Club, Brooker Creek Preserve Board, and the Dunedin Fine Arts Advisory Board. She has served on the Pinellas Education Foundation Board and been very active with many projects to benefit the students of Pinellas County.
Gallucci holds a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and a Master’s Degree in family therapy and guidance. She has also received extensive training in the Baldrige quality-based management system.
CLIENTS
- Madison Metropolitan School District
- Foundation of the Wausau School District
- Lincoln Public Schools Foundation
- Flint Community Schools
- Dearborn School District
- Linn-Mar School District
- York Foundation for Public Education
- Kidz Bite Back
- Penn Foster
CONTACT US
Jodi Bender Sweeney
Foundation Excellence
2998 Osmundsen Road
Madison, WI 53711
608-270-1625
jodi@foundationexcellence.com
E. Jane Gallucci
Foundation Excellence
3144 Masters Drive
Clearwater, FL 33761
727-215-2503
jane@foundationexcellence.com
