Dahnesh brings an impressive background that is an excellent fit with the vision for our portfolio (formerly called the Resilient Social Sector portfolio). Most recently, he worked with Education Northwest, where he provided capacity building and planning support to nonprofits and government organizations, both locally and nationally. His work included consulting with the Corporation for National and Community Service and nonprofit intermediaries participating in the Social Innovation Fund (a partnership of national funders and the federal government), as well as serving as a Plan Consultant for the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund's Flexible Leadership Award and its grantees in the Gay and Lesbian Rights and Immigrant Rights portfolios.
Previously, Dahnesh's roles included leading the organizational development consulting team at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon/TACS, serving as director of organizational services and capacity building with the National Community Development Institute in Oakland, Calif., and serving as Director of External Relations for the Tides Center in San Francisco. In all of those roles, Dahnesh supervised teams and led programmatic strategy development and implementation.
Dahnesh's experience with local and national philanthropy and nonprofits, team leadership and management, and his deep expertise with nonprofit organizational development and capacity building, provide an excellent foundation for building out and launching the Building Community portfolio.
In his spare time, Dahnesh tries to keep up with his two-year-old daughter and also serves on the national board of directors of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management and on the national advisory board for the Talent Philanthropy Project.
We couldn’t be happier to have Dahnesh lead our newest portfolio — and one of his first tasks was to help change the portfolio's name!
Please join me and Candy in welcoming Dahnesh to Meyer!
— Doug