Tara Mohr, Chair, is a life and executive coach, working with nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs. Over the past ten years she has worked in diverse roles in the nonprofit sector, with a focus on organizational change, strategic planning and program design in the Jewish community. Tara is the co-author of The Women’s Passover Companion and The Women’s Seder Sourcebook (Jewish Lights Publishing 2003) and is currently at work on a third book on personal growth. She received a BA in English Literature from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and loves to spend time seeing art, reading poetry, cooking for friends, and writing.

Michael Stein, Secretary, is a writer and nonprofit management consultant who works at the intersection of technology, marketing, and fundraising. The author of three books and numerous articles in this field, he recently wrote about uses of mobile phones in civil society for MobileActive. Michael has provided strategic support to numerous organizations on Internet strategy including: The William J. Clinton Foundation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, United Nations Food Programme, The James Irvine Foundation, and American Lung Association of California. Michael's opinion and analysis have been featured in numerous media, including The New York Times, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, National Public Radio, Wired News, TechSoup.org, and The Nonprofit Quarterly. He serves on the Board of Idealware.org. You can read his blog at www.michaelstein.net.

Merrick Furst, Ph.D., Acting Treasurer, distinguished Professor and Associate Dean, organizes commercialization activities and new venture creation and directs faculty development in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He is a founder of the anti-botnet startup, Damballa, Inc. His most recent venture is a company that starts and invests in new companies, Profounder, LLC. Prior to GT he was at Berkeley where he was president of the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley and CEO of Essential Surfing Gear, Inc. He served on the boards of the Jewish Community High School of the Bay and the board of the Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco. Merrick is known for seminal research in algorithms, complexity theory and Artificial Intelligence. Although he lives in Atlanta with his wife, April Dworetz, and has two children, his regular visits to the Bay area have become even more frequent with his daughter’s matriculation at USF.

Mara Berns Langer, Board Member, has a strong background in sales, sales training and non-profit development. Having worked at companies such as United Parcel Service and Siebel Systems, as well as the Schultz Jewish Community Center, Mara has an excellent understanding of the bridge between business and non-profit. She has been involved with the SF Jewish Community since 1995. Serving a variety of roles on several different local agencies, Mara is proud to be a professional volunteer. This fall she began her second year as a Wexner Heritage participant.

Maggi Gaines, Board Member, recently assumed a position as Director of Development for a newly merged statewide organization in Maryland that advocates for quality early childhood experiences and after school care. Previously, she served as Vice President for Service Learning and Partnerships at Jewish Funds for Justice. Prior to that Maggi served for six years as the founding Executive Director of Spark: Partnership for Service, which she guided through a merger into Jewish Funds for Justice in February 2007. Maggi was also the founding Executive Director of Baltimore Reads. She has been involved as a Board member in a number of start-ups: a Baltimore Jewish group, an interfaith legislative group, and an organization focused on service to the homeless. Maggi has been Executive Director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, an agency of the Baltimore Federation. Maggi is a recovering runner, an avid swimmer, and an adoring grandmother to the offspring of her daughter and son-in-law, and son and daughter in-law.

Ralph Guggenheim, Board Member, is an animation producer and media consultant. As a co-founder of Pixar, Ralph produced Toy Story, the first feature length computer animated film. Subsequently, he was an Executive Producer at Electronic Arts. In 2003 he formed Alligator Planet, an animation production company in San Francisco, where he has produced several animated features, animated episodes for TV and the web, and consulted to a number of traditional and new media companies. Ralph has served on numerous film festival juries, as well as the San Francisco Arts Commission and the board of the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Ric Rudman, Board Member, has over thirty years of board experience with non-profit organizations. He has served as the president of the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center (now called the Oshman Family JCC), Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, Hillel at Stanford University and the Ecumenical Hunger Program in East Palo Alto. Currently, he is serving as an officer of the board of the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center in San Mateo. Ric retired in 2006, after a 33-year career, as the EVP and COO of the non-profit Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Ric continues to pursue his interest in the energy field as a member of the advisory boards of two Silicon Valley energy efficiency start-up companies, Greenbox and GroundSource Geothermal. In 2009, Ric's volunteer activities as a mediator led to full-time employment with Project Sentinel, where he is managing community mediation programs for the cities of Palo Alto and Los Altos.

Joel Yanowitz, Board Member, is a management consultant known for his ability to help organizations accelerate business results and develop increased organizational capability. His clients include global corporations, entrepreneurial startups and non-profits. As a Vice President of Arthur D. Little, a global management consulting and technologydevelopment company, he led the Organization Practice in North America and co-led the Strategy Practice. Prior to that he was the Managing Director of Innovation Associates, a management consulting firm that pioneered approaches to organizational change and learning whose work was documented in the best-selling business book The Fifth Discipline. In the social sector, he is a founding Board member of The Red Tomato, and is on the Board of the African Food and Peace Foundation.