Ralph Smith, Senior Vice President, Annie E. Casey Foundation â€“ Smith joined the Casey Foundation in 1994 as director of planning and development. A former member of the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith is a nationally recognized legal scholar and attorney, authoring briefs in landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. As senior vice president of the Casey Foundation, Smith serves on the boards of the Council on Foundations, the Foundation Center, Wachovia Regional Foundation, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform and Venture Philanthropy Partners. He is an active participant in the International Network on Strategic Philanthropy and the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Change, and is a member of the Council of the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program.

Carla Colen Sparks, Director, Patient-Centered Initiatives and Community Engagement at the Center for Health Literacy â€“ Sparks is Director of Patient-Centered Initiatives and Community Engagement in the Center for Health Literacy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and an adjunct faculty of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.  Sparks has worked to promote African-American philanthropy in the Mid-South through her work with the Foundation for the Mid-South and as advisory member for the Mid-South African American Philanthropy Initiative. Sparks is a graduate of Philander Smith College with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Public Health degree from the UAMS College of Public Health

Karl Besel, Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Philanthropic Studies, Indiana University-Kokomo â€“ Besel is associate professor at Indiana University-Kokomo, School of Public and Environmental Affairs and faculty member at the Center on Philanthropy, IUPUI. His research includes nonprofit sustainability, comparative civil society, as well as community and economic development. Besel served as a visiting scholar at the Clinton School’s Center on Community Philanthropy during the Fall of 2009 and undertook a comprehensive study on nonprofit sustainability within the American South and Midwest with Dr. Charlotte Williams and Clinton School student Joanna Klak. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Nonprofit Management and Leadership Fall 2011.

Timothy McIntosh, Jr., Managing Partner, Park West Barber School, LLC â€“ McIntosh is managing partner of Park West Barber School, LLC in Durham, N.C. In 2007, he started The Barber Foundation which serves as the philanthropic arm of his barbering school. McIntosh is also a founding member of a donor advised fund, The Next Generation of African American Philanthropists, where he works for the positive socio-economic development of the African American community. During his career as a barber McIntosh has owned salons, barbershops and a barbering school and has served as a gubernatorial appointment to the North Carolina State Board of Barber Examiners. McIntosh is a native of Forestville, Md., and pursued higher education at North Carolina Central University in Durham, N.C. where he received a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Joy Thomas Moore, President and CEO, JWS Media Consulting â€“ Moore is the President and CEO of JWS Media Consulting, dedicated to finding innovative ways to use media and messaging techniques to further and deepen the goals of her clients. Prior to devoting herself to her consulting business full time, Moore worked for 15 years with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private philanthropy dedicated to helping build better futures for disadvantaged children and families in the United States. Her primary responsibility was oversight of the communications efforts of the Foundation’s national initiative, Making Connections. This included coordinating activities that helped the sites craft and disseminate the messages critical to the advancement of the initiative’s goals of family strengthening and neighborhood transformation. Prior to joining the Foundation, Joy was a freelance writer and field producer in the New York City area, where she contributed to numerous local and nationally syndicated television programs, including ESSENCE. Moore serves as a member of numerous boards and committees including the Dean’s National Alumni Advisory Board at the American University School of Communications, Board member/Officer of Media Impact Funders, Maryland Public Television Foundation and the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, Inc. Moore earned both her B.A. in Urban Communications and a M.A. in Broadcast Journalism at the American University in Washington, D.C.  She has three grown children and resides in Pasadena, Maryland