Disaster Preparedness for Nonprofit Organizations

With 30 years of hands-on experience working on major gift fundraising and nonprofit communications, Carolyn’s mission is to help nonprofits attain their fundraising, digital media communications and public relations goals in the most efficient, thoughtful and quality manner possible. Carolyn has raised more than $33 million for nonprofit organizations across Texas. Among the organizations located in Hurricane Harvey-impacted areas with which Carolyn has worked are: CKWRI and the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management (TAMUK); AMST: Art Museum of South Texas; South Texas Council, Boy Scouts of America; Rob & Bessie Welder Wildlife Foundation; and the Port Aransas Art Center. Additionally, she recently helped TEXSAR: Texas Search and Rescue establish its first full-fledged office, hire its first Executive Director, and expand statewide (including into South Texas).Carolyn's Nonprofit Blog is Carolyn's primary online publication today (carolynmappleton.com), and you can learn more about her experiences and advice there.

Dhruv Khattar is the Director of Client Solutions at Urgensee, Inc., a Houston-based management consulting firm focused on helping nonprofits transform and scale fundraising, volunteer management, program management and community engagement primarily using the Salesforce platform. Dhruv graduated with an MBA/MS in Information Management from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in 2014 and has been working with the nonprofit sector ever since. Prior to graduating from W. P. Carey School of Business, Dhruv worked at Microsoft and Amazon. He has built a career around bringing cutting-edge operations and technology to mission-driven organizations.

Since joining Urgensee in January 2017, Dhruv has led engagements at eight game-changing nonprofits across the United States. His most memorable engagements include transforming volunteer operations at Playworks serving a 20,000+ volunteer base, building PURPLE (an early-detection system used to connect at-risk students to essential services) and creating the Out2Learn After-school Program Locator for the City of Houston serving 450k Houston families.

Joe Hillis is a Systems Engineer and Technology Consultant to small and medium enterprises. He is also the co-founder and Operations Director for the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center; a volunteer driven non-profit that provides emergency communications and technology resources that connect survivors and responders after a disaster. Joe has over 25 years of experience in both Public Safety and Information Technology, and has served as an advisor to FEMA on various initiatives. He holds a number of industry credentials, which combined with decades of disaster response experience, gives him what he calls “a 360 degree view of Disaster Technology.”