Driven to serve the often-overlooked people management needs for the social impact sector, Lisa set out to build a market where one didn’t exist. She founded Nonprofit HR, the leading talent management firm in the country that works exclusively with the nonprofit sector.

Today, fueled by the passion of 130-plus employees and consultants nationwide, her thriving company is helping many of the nation’s most prominent nonprofit organizations get ahead through smart people management strategies. In the process, they’re changing the way an entire sector thinks about talent and culture.

Lisa has inspired Nonprofit HR to become a force that thousands of nonprofit and talent management leaders look to for consulting services, thought partnership, sector-specific hiring, and executive search needs, professional development and information.

Lisa’s leadership and the work of her firm have proven that better talent practices can play an integral role in nonprofit success. Nonprofits have benefited from her wealth of knowledge and experience to make their people-driven initiatives successful. Lisa’s goal is to ensure that every Nonprofit HR engagement inspires social sector leaders to strengthen their most important asset: their people. Over the course of her career, Lisa has presented to hundreds of organizations, staff and leadership teams, covering all things talent management for the social sector.

Add your event to Lisa’s list of upcoming speaking engagements. To hire Lisa for your upcoming event, contact Executive Business Associate, Dottie Jones, for speaker details djones@nonprofithr.com.

You won’t meet a more pleasant, passionate and committed talent management champion than Patty Hampton. Nationally-recognized as a beacon of light for social sector people management, and since 2001, she has served in a dual leadership capacity as Managing Partner and Chief Social Impact Officer. Among her many accomplishments with the firm, Patty helped build its infrastructure, culture and workforce.

Patty is creator of the firm’s social enterprise collaborative, and spearheads multiple strategies and business initiatives. In her role as Managing Partner, she co-leads the firm’s business and financial strategies and is a member of the senior management team.

Innovation is a personal core value of Patty’s which has helped her shape the firm’s executive recruitment and consultation services. Her expertise includes developing and delivering training programs and facilitating focus groups that result in an enriched employee/supervisor relationship and engaged workforce culture. Before joining Nonprofit HR, Patty Hampton served as Director of Human Resources with ASAE, The Center for Association Leadership (formerly known as the American Society of Association Executives). Before ASAE, Patty dedicated more than ten years of her career to a large trade association.

Patty is a Master Certified Professional Coach (MCPC) through the Certified Life Coach Institute, accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Patty’s commitment to serving as a transformational leadership coach to maximize an individual’s personal and professional potential is inspiring. Additionally, as a certified PDA (Personal Development Analysis) Analyst, through PDA International, she leverages the PDA Assessment as a reliable, scientifically validated tool specifically developed to understand and describe the behavioral styles of individuals in hiring and working environments. The PDA is used in the firm’s retained executive, professional search business, and internal hiring and talent development practices. Patty is also a Certified Search Consultant (CSC) and an advocate for the Women in Leadership Council with the American Staffing Association. She is a former board member of the Social Enterprise Alliance. Patty received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Trinity University in Washington, DC. She is active in the community and an ardent volunteer and donor with East and West Coast nonprofits.

Pronouns: She, her, hers

Relationship-driven at his core, Sidney Abrams has earned the reputation of trusted advisor to hundreds of nonprofit decision-makers, largely because of his passion for partnering with organizations to prioritize their people. In fact, throughout the entirety of his career, Sidney has focused on talent management, organizational development and human resources, even in boom-and-bust economies. Drawn to HR during his undergraduate years, Sidney has focused his career exclusively on the profession and built recognized expertise in the areas of functional startups/turnarounds, HR effectiveness, project management and HR technology. His early beginnings working for family-run for-profit businesses paved the way for his transition to the social sector in 2000. These experiences, successes and passions are a few reasons why Sidney is Chief Client Experience Officer for Nonprofit HR, a role that oversees new business generation and solution strategy for clients nationwide.

From prospect stewardship to strategic alliances and charged with scaling growth, Sidney’s role sits at the intersection of where organizations are going and the talent capacity needed to get them there. A collaborative thinker and leader with a can-do spirit, Sidney architects solutions for new and existing clients by mobilizing the best and brightest minds with cutting edge people-focused solutions across all Nonprofit HR practices, including Strategy & Advisory, Outsourcing, Search, Total Rewards and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Justice.

A well-known conference speaker and conversation facilitator, Sidney brings to business development more than 25 years of talent management leadership. Under Sidney’s prior role as Managing Director of Consulting Services, he spearheaded growth of the firm’s consultancy from eight to nearly 50 practitioners, increasing revenue by nearly 400%. Sidney leverages his keen business acumen as a member of the firm’s Senior Management Team. Prior to his role as Managing Director, Sidney was a Senior Consultant on the Outsourcing team and led the firm’s HR projects practice where he completed dozens of engagements including HR effectiveness assessments, multi-state compliance audits, HRIS implementations and sensitive investigations.

Sidney graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Human Resource Management and is a proud Terp alum. He earned professional certifications from HR Certification Institute (HRCI), Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Human Capital Institute (HCI). Sidney is a proud father of four teenage boys, an avid sports fan, and enjoys traveling and sampling great BBQ.

Heather de la Riva, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, heads our Business Development practice. Heather’s strategic mindset, charismatic leadership style and keen focus on customization has led the firm to unprecedented success. She maintains a triple focus on the development and support of her team, clients’ human capital needs and Nonprofit HR’s business priorities.

Heather helps leaders understand the value of prioritizing their people and their correlation with mission outcomes. She has successfully led innovative and complex engagements in performance management, workforce planning, talent management assessments and process improvement across the HR lifecycle. By developing strong partnerships with executive leaders, Heather has become a change agent and she inspires her team to do the same. She not only focuses on the work of today, but keeps an eye on sector shifts to forecast and plan for the work of tomorrow. This success has led to the realization of a 95% client retention rate and over 600% growth in practice revenues.

By rallying her team of HR professionals to uphold work-life integration, Heather leads by example. In addition to her Managing Director role, she’s a wife, mother, a former elected member of the Board of Trustees of a public library in upstate New York and a member of the Oneidas Club, the oldest civic organization in her community.

Prior to joining Nonprofit HR, Heather led the HR function of a nonprofit going through tremendous growth and transformation. She has deep experience in talent acquisition and worked on several political campaigns and on Capitol Hill. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Villanova University and holds professional certifications from the HR Certification Institute (HRCI) and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Pronouns: She, her, hers

A Team Leader & Senior Consultant on the Recruitment Outsourcing team of Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR, Getenesh Mimi Asfaw attributes her success to strong leadership skills, an enthusiastic work ethic and an unwavering passion for helping businesses achieve success through having the right members on their team. With over 18 years of experience as an extraordinarily successful recruiting professional, Mimi has differentiated herself with a 98% placement ratio, while providing full lifecycle permanent recruitment for healthcare, administrative, IT, accounting and finance, legal, and call center professionals. Over the years, her clients have remained loyal and dedicated, allowing her to establish a longstanding influence on the HR recruiting and management industry.

In addition to running her own consulting firm, Mimi served as the Vice President and Partner for a startup staffing agency. She identified and secured the best talent, based on the clients’ objectives. As Director of Placement Services at a national staffing agency, she developed long-term business relationships and established multiple new business relationships that helped the company gain over $5.8 million in gross sales. Not only has Mimi been a consistent top ten producer, but she has also accumulated over $15 million in gross profit for her former employers. Throughout the pandemic, she worked with a well-known healthcare insurance company to recruit over 75 remote call-center representatives across three states. Additionally, her role as an Operations Manager for AT&T allowed Mimi to find a passion that led her to Trans World Airlines (TWA). There, she established herself as a rainmaker within the airlines industry before going on to manage the Homeland Security 911 Project, where she oversaw the hiring of over 50,000 screeners statewide within a matter of six months.

Mimi attended Montgomery College for pre-medicine and the University of Maryland as a microbiology major, and then Dale Carnegie for a certification program in leadership management training. Being the daughter of a U.S. Army Colonel and a successful entrepreneur, Mimi is a huge veteran’s advocate and volunteers to support people without homes.

As part of Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR, Danisha Martin is a Team Leader & Senior Consultant and trusted advisor for the firm’s retained executive search engagements. She conducts interviews with senior and C-level professionals and evaluates qualifications and alignment with the client organizations’ needs. Gifted in assessing talent, adept in relationship-building, and known for her professionalism and creative strategic approach, Danisha designs and manages the search process and ensures the successful experience of both clients and candidates. She works collaboratively with the Managing Director of Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR on strategy, business development initiatives and team building as well as leads and supports the retained search team in their client-facing engagements. 

Danisha has over nine years of experience in search, talent acquisition and human resources. She has successfully managed the staffing and recruitment needs for clients ranging from small and mid-sized operations to Fortune 500 organizations across various sectors. At Nonprofit HR, Danisha has partnered with clients such as the National Association of Black Accountants, Baltimore Children & Youth Fund, Zion Church, the Association of Maternal Child Health Programs and Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to place Chief Executive Officers. Prior to joining Nonprofit HR in 2019, her previous employers include local recruitment firms, CitiFinancial, Pepsi Bottling Group and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Danisha earned both a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree with a concentration in Human Resources from the Mobley School of Business & Industry at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida.

When Danisha is not helping clients identify their next superstar executives, she is doing quadruple spins on a salsa dance floor, rolling down a rink in her quad skates or spending precious quality time with her family in their D.C. home.

Pronouns: She, her, hers

Jami Armstrong serves as a trusted advisor on national search engagements for Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR. This includes being responsible for the successful closure of search assignments at the professional and executive levels, using unique search methodologies and strategies. Additionally, she conducts detailed interviews with professional, senior and executive-level candidates to evaluate qualifications and fit with the client organizations’ needs; prepares oral and written informative assessments, presentations and recommendations; and manages the expectations of both clients and candidates to ensure successful experiences on every search process within the agreed-upon timelines.

Jami brings over 15 years of experience in corporate recruiting, agency recruiting and client relations in several sectors. These sectors include engineering, corporate operation roles, accounting in for-profit and nonprofit organizations, government contracting and international development. She has had years of proven success managing a high volume of open job requisitions at multiple levels while simultaneously delivering excellent client service.

Jami’s career accomplishments include but are not limited to experience building business brands from startup to fully operational and exceeding profit goals. These efforts have been accompanied by consecutive years of winning top performance accolades and awards. Outside of work, Jami is a doting mother of one son, enjoys creative arts, water sports and traveling to warm climates inside and outside of the United States.

Salima Moolji is a Senior Consultant for Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR, where she partners with nonprofit organizations looking to recruit executive leaders, primarily to help transform organizations and allow them to thrive in reaching their highest potential. In this capacity, she is recognized as an inspirational leader and ambassador for the firm.

With over 15 years of experience as an Executive Consultant, Ms. Moolji grew her career working with companies worldwide to solve specific business challenges. Her consulting projects have focused on a variety of areas including human resources, sustainability and real estate.

Ms. Moolji was a double major in Political Science and Economics from Southern Methodist University. She has a passion for sustainability and heads a nonprofit organization creating a high-performance, low emissions building district in Dallas, which works to make the city more sustainable. She loves art, baking, interior design, traveling and spending time with her family.

Natasha Dennis is a Consultant with the Recruitment Outsourcing team of Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR. Natasha is a master talent acquisition professional with 8 years of full lifecycle recruitment, client management and metric analytics experience. She is widely recognized for her superior search and placement strategies and exceptional ability to build and maintain relationships for optimal talent and organizational success.

Prior to joining Nonprofit HR, Natasha served as the recruitment and internship manager at a leading research and advocacy thinktank in Washington, D.C. She developed, implemented and managed practical recruitment methods to improve the organization’s overall recruitment process for permanent and temporary staff. Before solely managing process revitalization assignments, Natasha held Lead Talent Acquisition roles, offering her expertise on strategic sourcing and placement, behavioral, case and situational style interviewing, effective organizational development and employer branding strategies to increase talent attraction and retention.

Natasha earned a bachelor’s degree in Rhetoric Communication and Business Administration from Trinity Washington University and a master’s degree from Georgetown University with a concentration in Talent Management and Organization development. She is a member of Lambda Pi Eta, National Communication Association Honor Society, and a certified training facilitator, leading courses in behavioral-based interviewing, employer branding and customer service engagement. When she’s not sourcing for top talent or engaging clients for recruitment meetings, Natasha is trying out new recipes, brunching with friends, online shopping and binge-watching noteworthy documentaries and series.

As a Consultant for Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR, Sophia LaFontant finds the best and brightest candidates to fulfill employment opportunities for Nonprofit HR’s clients. She is passionate about the professional development of new candidates and the growth of the Search practice area.

Sophia has a diverse professional background and started her career as an investigator for the Attorney General of the State of Florida before transitioning to human resources at the Department of Homeland Security. She also worked as a recruiter with the Public Defender Service (PDS) for the District of Columbia and D.C. Courts and helped increase diversity within both agencies by expanding partnerships with 52 targeted educational institutions and associations. Her expertise includes establishing talent acquisition initiatives that target diversity and designing interactive training methods.

Sophia received a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree from Florida State University in Psychology and Criminology. She holds her Certified Staffing Professional (CSP) credential from the American Staffing Association and a Diversity and Inclusion Certification from Cornell.  She has hosted recruitment webinars, conducted career information sessions, served as a panelist and presenter at conferences and participated in numerous career fairs as a recruiter. 

Pronouns: She, her, hers

As a Consultant with Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR, Cassandra Bacon serves as a trusted advisor to clients while managing their search engagements in the professional and executive spaces. In alignment with the client organizations’ needs, she provides recruiting methodology guidance, assesses candidates’ qualifications, prepares candidate recommendations and maintains expectations while delivering an exquisite experience for clients and candidates.

Cassandra started her career in a medical spa and rapidly moved into the highest position as a Clinic Administrator, managing a team of 30 employees. During her time as a Clinic Administrator, she doubled the clinic’s sales and created a standardized process for handling health-related emergencies. She then made a career transition into talent acquisition at Alliance Data Systems where she specialized in recruiting, mergers and acquisitions, interviewing methodology, talent brand and candidate experience.

Cassandra enjoys being challenged in her work and creating novel talent solutions for organizations. When the pandemic hit, and in partnership with an external video interview company, she implemented and launched a virtual interviewing platform to pivot quickly from in person interviewing. The implementation of the software saved the recruiting team over 2,100 hours and saved the company over $1.1 million dollars by avoiding travel interviews. In conjunction with consistently and quickly filling open roles at her previous organization, she implemented and launched a compliant interviewing practice, which decreased the organization’s hiring error costs from $167 million in 2019 to $78 million from 2020-2021. This program consisted of virtual training for hiring teams, certification exams, supplemental self-guided trainings and interview guides based on each open job. She believes the candidate experience starts the minute a candidate interacts with the organization’s website and extends until they have fully acclimated to their new organization. Having helped many change careers and having changed careers herself, Cassandra is familiar with the challenges that exist when contemplating a job change. As a talent acquisition professional, she strives to provide the highest level of service to make that transition seamless for candidates and clients alike.

Cassandra holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Public Health with specializations in Sociology and Psychology from the Ohio State University. When she’s not working, you can find her in the yoga studio, at the beach with her three dogs or volunteering at a local animal shelter.

Pronouns: She, her, hers

Our Managing Director for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Justice (EDIJ, formerly DEI), Antonio L. Cortes, PhD, is an Industrial/Organizational and Business Psychologist with extensive experience in the nonprofit sector. In his current role, he provides strategic and operational leadership to the EDIJ practice area. Areas of support include Organizational Equity Assessments to uncover oversights in operations which lead to inequities, strategy development to solve unique organizational issues in the EDIJ space, global application of EDIJ concepts for multinational organizations and training on topics such as Building a Business Case for EDIJ, Implicit (unconscious) Bias, Microaggressions and Systems Theory Application to Workforce Development.

In his previous role at a large national nonprofit, Antonio oversaw national organizational development strategies that contributed to the growth of an existing membership base consisting of three billion dollars in annual revenue across 2,700 U.S.-based locations. Antonio has engaged in EDIJ work focused on improving multiple levels of organizational functioning from personnel development to business model redesign to meet the needs of evolving customer groups. Antonio has significant experience facilitating EDIJ workshops with nonprofit organizations of varying sizes and geographies in addition to serving as an adjunct faculty member leading graduate-level courses in Global HR, Managing Organizational Diversity, Organizational Behavior and Organizational Leadership.

Antonio holds an Associate of Arts (AA) degree in Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in General Psychology from Purdue University in addition to a Master of Arts (MA) degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Business Psychology both from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. When asked for a fun fact about himself, he shared he takes pride in the fact that he has never once lost his keys or his wallet.

Atokatha leads Nonprofit HR’s marketing and communication firm-wide strategy and practice. She brings over 20 years of experience designing, implementing and promoting data-driven marketing best practices across the full range of marketing and communications for nonprofit and for-profit organizations.

Her most recent role, prior to Nonprofit HR, was as Senior Director, Marketing & Digital Community Engagement with the International Economic Development Council. Atokatha has also worked with ICMA, Smithsonian Institution, Integrated Systems Analysts, Inc. and several other social-impact organizations. She also has experience in supplier diversity, having built tier I and tier II minority business relations with Fortune 500 companies. She has represented various firms through the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s national and state affiliations.

The former CEO of Brandbuilder, a full services communication and marketing firm, she has led consultants who are focused on vision and mission mapping, strategic communication, branding and marketing projects management. Atokatha is a 10-year columnist for Minority Business Entrepreneur magazine; co-author of two small business publications, Seen and Sustained and The Balancing Act; an international speaker; and adjunct professor.

Atokatha is a certified PDA (Personal Development Analysis) Analyst. The PDA Assessment is a reliable, scientifically validated tool specifically developed to understand and describe the behavioral styles of individuals in hiring and working environments. The PDA is also used in the firm’s retained executive and professional search practice and in its internal hiring and talent development practices as well. She holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree in International Business from Trinity University and bachelor’s degree in Communications from Marymount University. Atokatha is pursuing a doctorate degree in Business Psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Washington, D.C.