Fuel Nonprofits To Achieve Maximum Good!

Peter Brach is a passionate advocate for providing people, organizations, communities, and ecosystems with the capacity support needed to achieve new levels of impact. He has served as a trustee and grantee for a private family foundation since 2014. He has managed the Funders 2025 Fund since 2019 – a future-focused DAF dedicated to achieving exceptional meta-level impact by supporting far-reaching umbrella organizations. Peter has provided consulting support to the SDG Philanthropy Platform, and Worldwide Initiative of Grantmaker Support (WINGS).

In September 2020, Peter and his team at Creative Visions Foundation began building the Invest in People Hub. Included are short stories where relatively small amounts of funding achieved exceptional impact. From September to the present, he’s also convened umbrella organizations to explore approaches for inspiring a new narrative around the critical role they play within philanthropy. Organizations convened include representatives from the Council of Nonprofits, Council of Foundations, WINGS, GivingTuesday, TechSoup, Giving Compass, Southern California Grantmakers, and New England International Donors.

In November 2020, GivingTuesday published Peter’s blog post, Strengthening the People on the Frontlines of Change. In February 2021, Peter’s article, One Funder’s Reasons for Supporting Umbrella Organizations, appeared in WINGS’ newsletter. During the same month, Peter’s similar article, Why I Fund Philanthropy Support Organizations, was published by Alliance Magazine. In May of 2021, he published his second edition of an online mini course to provide donors with a lay-of-the-land understanding about investing in people and nonprofit capacity-building. In addition to philanthropy, Peter loves people, good discussions, music, interesting movies, and engaging in regular meditative prayer practices.

Kathy Eldon has worked as a teacher, journalist, author and film and television producer in England, Kenya and the United States. In 1990, Kathy founded Creative Visions Productions to produce entertaining, impact media. Kathy has exec-produced eight award-winning films, including a three-part PBS series, Global Tribe, about grassroots social entrepreneurs, an Oprah Winfrey Network Special, Extraordinary Moms, featuring Hilary Clinton, Julia Roberts, Christiane Amanpour, and a CNN special, Soldiers of Peace, a Children’s Crusade. Together with Kweku Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela, Kathy produced The Journey is the Destination, a feature film (now on Netflix), based on the life of her son, Dan, a 22-year-old photojournalist killed in Somalia while working for Reuters News Agency.

Kathy is the founder of Creative Visions, a non-profit recognized as a UN NGO (non-governmental organization that has impacted more than 100 million people. Since 2004, Creative Visions has supported more than 400 projects and productions globally by creative activists who use the power of media and the arts to trigger awareness of critical issues and catalyze positive change. Kathy is the author of 17 books, including Hope Rising, A Musing, published in 2021, and her memoir, In the Heart of Life, published by HarperOne. A popular speaker, Kathy has been featured on countless television and radio programs globally, including several appearances on Oprah. Kathy lives in Malibu with her husband, Michael Bedner, a few steps away from the Dan Eldon Center for Creative Activism, a vibrant hub for individuals who want to help change the world for the better.

Pat Chandler has been CEO of Creative Visions for six years and brings more than 25 years of business, marketing and media management experience and expertise to the organization. She came to Creative Visions from Points of Light where she served on the executive team for eight years holding positions as SVP of Marketing and Corporate Partnerships, Chief External Affairs Officer and Senior Advisor to the CEO. Points of Light was the largest volunteer management organization in the world and had a mission to inspire, equip and mobilize people to take action that changes the world.

Prior to her tenure with Points of Light, she was Chief Operating Officer of SWI Consulting, Inc., a company that specialized in managing and activating the philanthropy and social influence of athletes and entertainers. Chandler also served in leadership roles with the Home Depot for 5 years, including as President of the Home Depot Foundation and head of Community Affairs. In these roles, she managed and designed the company’s corporate social responsibility, civic engagement and philanthropy programs.

She served as President and CEO of Chandler Communications, a full-service marketing and public relations firm headquartered in Seattle, for nearly 10 years and was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Washington, Bastyr University and Seattle Community College’s Center for Business Development where she taught marketing and public relations courses.

Early in her career she also worked in the media as a television producer and print journalist and was managing editor of the True Citizen, a weekly newspaper in Tacoma, Washington.

She is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington and holds degrees in Political Science and Urban Planning.