nonprofit leadership coaching

Changing the world by empowering the change agents

The Coach Initiative is passionate about helping nonprofit organizations, like yours, change the world. We started with a vision that coaches could go beyond serving their elite, paying clientele to offer their services to nonprofit organizations ready to soar, but perhaps lacking the funding to engage the kind of coaching that could take them there. In 2006, that vision became a reality when Bobette Reeder, Donna Steinhorn and Guy Stickney founded The Coach Initiative, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to matching experienced coaches with nonprofits ready to take their organizations to the next level. From the start, our founders asked a number of influential coaches to join foundation board, with the Harnisch Foundation generously supplying an establishing grant. The group committed to provide coaching support to Stand Up for Kids (SUFK) and enlisted a few prominent coaches to coach the leaders of SUFK. Over the years, The Coach Initiative has partnered with countless nonprofits to help them take their mission and impact to the next level.

Donna Steinhorn

Donna Steinhorn is current Past President and founder of The Coach Initiative and also founder of Coaching to Success and co-founder of Conversation Among Masters. She is the former Executive Vice President for CoachVille and past Dean of the Thomas Leonard Coaching School and was a 2005 recipient of the “t” award. She has been an active member of the ICF, serving on two ICF conference teams and several ICF committees. Donna is a founding member of the International Association for Coaching, a Board Member of the Transformational Leadership Council, Co-Founder of the nonprofit Ludo Collaborative Arts and past producer of TEDx Navesink. She is also a member of the Research and Advocacy committee of the Lobular Breast Cancer Association.

An executive, life and mentor coach, Donna has more than 40 years of corporate and business experience. With her multiple roles, she’s learned how crucial it is to embrace change and create inspiring, sustainable environments for success. Donna has two grown children and lives on the Jersey shore in a century-old carriage house with her husband. A favorite quote: “The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” -Ben Franklin

Bobette Reeder

Bobette Reeder is a past President and founder of The Coach Initiative. A Master Certified Coach and a past president of the International Coach Federation (ICF). A coach since 1995, Bobette has had extensive and varied experience serving in the international coaching community. She was on the ICF Board of Directors for 10 years, served on several ICF conference teams in both the U.S. and Europe, and initiated and facilitated the organization’s Global Forum. She was the 2004 recipient of the ICF President’s Award and has been the focus of numerous media articles and interviews. Along with Donna and Guy, she is a co-founder of Conversation Among Masters.

Bobette has been happily married for 50 years (really!) and has two married children and five magical grandchildren, plus Murphy the wonder dog. Her personal and professional style are all about having fun and seeking the positive side in everything life brings. A favorite quote: “Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can” –Danny Kaye.

Neil Alcala

Neil Alcala is a Coach Initiative Past President and CEO of DirectPay. Neil Alcala has worked in the eCommerce industry for over 18 years and in that time has transformed DirectPay from a home-based business to an enterprise with thousands of clients.

Utilizing his degree in Engineering and extensive experience with workflow and organizational processes, Neil has succeeded in supporting a wide variety of business types in increasing productivity with payment processing systems designed to meet their specific needs.

DirectPay remains dedicated to the idea of a client-centered approach to business support, building sustainable relationships with coaches, speakers, information marketers and other service professionals all over the world.

Phyllis Haynes

Phyllis Haynes board Emeritus of The Coach Initiative is a Speaker, Trainer, Master of Ceremonies, award winning television personality, producer and former ABC Network News correspondent. Phyllis has motivated, trained and inspired thousands of people around the world and across the USA. She is currently the producer of projects for Studio1network.net.

Phyllis is a leading authority on bottom-line communications, building lasting business relationships, and getting results! Phyllis She is a partner and principal with Inter-Change Consultants and a specialist in communications including extensive knowledge on new communications issues and media application. She consults on cross-cultural issues for companies who wish to broaden their international exposure and understanding. Phyllis was invited by the European Union and the Hellenic Foundation to bring her work to the emerging marketplaces of Central and Eastern Europe. She also served as a professional specialist on the faculty of Emerson College in Boston. As a speaker, facilitator, trainer and moderator, Phyllis Haynes is in demand. Her knowledge of global media, new media technology and cross cultural communication encompasses over 20 years of experience in television. She is well known as the former co-host of WOR-TV’s “Straight Talk” and as a network correspondent for ABC’s “Evening News with Peter Jennings” and “Good Morning America.”

Phyllis holds an M.A. from New York University in Political Science with a concentration in Asian and Russian Affairs. She is fluent in French and has a strong background in Russian.

Patricia McMillan

Patricia McMillan is serving as our Current Vice President and Treasurer. For more than 30 years, as an executive with several of the largest global financial institutions, Patricia McMillan helped domestic and international companies prosper and grow. Patricia began her career as a public accountant with one of the major global accounting firms working with Fortune 100 companies. Patricia transitioned to banking and credit, traveling nationally and internationally (South America, Europe, and Asia) to perform credit audits of the Bank’s corporate, institutional, commercial, real estate, leasing, commodity financing, insurance, broker/dealer, private banking, personal financial services, and credit card loan portfolios in the various regions.

As an executive at financial service firms JPMorgan Chase and ABN AMRO, Patricia directed the origination and execution of a variety of corporate finance transactions; established and managed an industry-aligned loan products and credit structuring product group; and structured multi-million-dollar financing transactions, which preserved and created jobs and financed affordable housing investment nationwide, in conjunction with managing a $1.3 billion syndicated loan portfolio. In addition to global and Middle Market companies, Patricia has worked with the largest national community development institutions (NCDIs), Foundations, and Not-for-Profits in the U.S.

Patricia has been helping businesses and individuals with strategic planning and tax issues as a business owner in Warwick, NY for 10+ years.

Patricia’s volunteer experience includes:

• Working with the Greater Jamaica (NY) Development Corporation to facilitate lending to new and small businesses that created permanent jobs in their community.

• Former board member/Treasurer of The Center for Family Support, Inc., an organization operating in NY and NJ providing services to individuals with developmental challenges and respite to their families. Former Governor & Treasurer of the Ramapo College of NJ’s Foundation.

• Patricia currently serves as President of the board of Community2gether in Warwick, NY. B.S. – Accounting, Brooklyn College, City University of New York MBA – Finance, Columbia University, New York City Certified Public Accountant – State of New York

LuAnn Buechler

LuAnn Buechler our Current President is known as the Little Spark, and that she is - Sparking breakthrough change in businesses and individuals by helping them “Find Joy through Passion, People and Process” She is the owner of PMC Events & Coaching which she started 17 years ago. She is a Business Coach, Master Trainer, and Transformational Speaker. She has helped hundreds of Entrepreneurs achieve the success the desire in their life and business.

LuAnn is the co-author of Exceptional Care for Your Valued Clients, applying the power of positive word choice in the customer service experience and ihug: My Journey as a Hugger, which she self-published in 2017. Watch for her next book coming in 2022 7 Tips to Creating Joyful Workplaces: How to engage your team and increase profits.

LuAnn has been a BNI (Business Network International) Member for 17 years. Served as a BNI Director Consultant for 16 years, and now serves as a Chapter Success Coach with the BNI organization. BNI is the primary tool LuAnn has used to grow her business and credit’s BNI for having changed her life!

LuAnn is also a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, an organization created by Jack Canfield, best-selling author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, where transformational leaders share best practices and co-create humanitarian projects to transform the world.

Her favorite quote is “Do what you love, in service to people who love what you do.” This is what she helps people do in their life and business through her unique coaching approach.

Dr. Cheryl Clark

Dr. Cheryl Clark is internationally recognized as a leader in Correctional Education and Treatment Programs and an expert in Synergetics and substance abuse treatment. She is the principal author of DOING LIFE! A Life Skills Program for Recovery From Addictions® and SMART Choices: A Guide for Making Choices That Work.

PhD dissertation: 12* of Freedom: Synergetics and the 12 Steps to Recovery

Co-founder of DOING LIFE!® International Inc. and Social Synergetics, LLC

(Retired) Director of Shock Incarceration and the Willard Drug Treatment Campus (DTC) for the New York State Department of Correctional Services (NYS DOCS).

Shock Incarceration, a documentary is about the transformational work that Cherie Clark co-created for the prison system in New York state.

Raymond Aaron

Raymond Aaron has committed his life to teaching you how to dramatically improve your life. Raymond transforms your life and income by helping you tap into your own potential.

Raymond has traveled the world delivering over 5,000 speeches in 5 continents for almost 40 years teaching his unique methods to branding, doubling your income, and creating wealth.

He is the author of 147 books, including Branding Small Business For Dummies, Double Your Income Doing What You Love and the New York Times best-seller Chicken Soup for the Parents Soul and the Canadian best-seller, Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul. He is also an avid adventurer having completed one of the world’s toughest races, Polar Race (a 350-mile month-long foot-race to the Magnetic North Pole at -40˚ hauling a 100-pound sled, dodging polar bears).

Laurie Milazzo

Laurie Milazzo has served as our dedicated Program Director since 2012. As such, Laurie is responsible for numerous essential activities and responsibilities that keep The Coach Initiative operating, from processing pro bono coach and nonprofit applications to matching organizations with the right coach to scheduling monthly board meetings and taking meeting minutes, to ensuring that feedback is collected after coaching engagements end. The success of The Coach Initiative would not be possible without Laurie’s dedication and commitment. Thank you, Laurie, for always keeping us on task and for being the reliable hub through which so many of The Coach Initiative’s endeavors flow

Frances Garavuso

Frances Garavuso is the Coach Initiative's Program Coordinator. She provides administrative support to The Coach Initiative team, as well as supporting our volunteer coaches and program participants since 2020. Frances developed a deep sense of appreciation and devotion to the coaching industry as Manager of Operations for DirectPay over the past 16 years, where their niche in providing merchant services is focused mainly on the coaching industry. Having the honor to get to know our exceptionally talented and compassionate volunteer coaches, matching them with leaders of philanthropic non-profit organizations and seeing how this program is making a difference all over the globe is what Frances loves most about working with The Coach Initiative.

Liliana Keany

Liliana Keany has been a senior consultant at Attain Partners for several months.  She has 13 years of Higher Education experience with her core focus being in costing and sponsored research administration. Liliana has worked at Princeton University, Rutgers University, and Steven Institute of Technology. Her current collaborators include Yale University, Boston Children’s Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Memorial-Sloan Kettering. Her favorite thing about working in the industry is the connections she makes to her clients and seeing the behind the scenes of University financials. Liliana enjoys spending time with her husband, her two kids, and her pets. She enjoys engaging in volunteer efforts in her hometown areas.

Eva Wong

Eva Wong is the creator of a series of charity programs named as “Heart Chorus”. These programs have been run for 20 years and benefited almost a million of people in many countries and regions such as China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Canada. She is very passionate in coaching, training and philanthropy. Eva was born and educated in Hong Kong, and with her post graduate degree from Australia. Eva Wong is the first person brought coaching into China and author of several coaching related books including The Power of REN.

Kanu Kogod

Kanu Kogod 2Trained as an anthropologist, organizational development consultant and master certified coach with global work experience, Kanu Kogod started her own consulting firm, Bridges in Organizations, in 1987. Kanu co-designed and for over nine years facilitated Leadership Alchemy, an award-winning nine-month transformational leadership development program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Her clients include the World Bank Group, the National Park Service, Merck Pharmaceuticals and the International Red Cross.

Kanu addresses everything from cultural collisions to culture change in order to successfully impact a leader’s performance and job satisfaction as well as the performance and satisfaction of the people they lead. She uses a holistic approach—language, body, emotions and spirit. That means helping leaders with the tools they need to design conversations, build leadership presence and raise their emotional intelligence so that they can achieve the outcomes they desire in their organizations, communities or in a larger political arena.

Madeleine Homan Blanchard

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a Master Certified Coach for The Ken Blanchard Companies®; a cofounder of Blanchard® Coaching Services; and a co-creator of the Coaching Management System, Blanchard’s Internet platform that supports large-scale coaching initiatives. With her deep understanding of human behavior and her humor, she inspires leaders to use coaching concepts to increase their effectiveness in their professional and personal lives.

Madeleine has more than 27 years of experience in the coaching profession and specializes in consulting with companies that want to establish a coaching culture. She can design large-scale implementations, provide mentoring and executive coaching, and teach leaders to leverage the best of coaching technology. Her areas of expertise are leadership presence and effectiveness, self-awareness and impact with others, and strategic focus. Madeleine is a coauthor of Blanchard’s coaching skills program, Coaching Essentials®, and the books Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest: The Coaching Secrets Executives Depend On; Coaching in Organizations; Leading ata Higher Level; and Coaching for Leadership: The Practice of Leadership Coaching from the World’s Greatest Coaches.

A pioneer in the coaching profession, Madeleine was a senior leader and founding advisory board member of Coach University and a founding board member of The International Coach Federation.

Prior to her career at The Ken Blanchard Companies, she founded Straightline Coaching, a company devoted to the success and satisfaction of creative geniuses. She spent two years as the director for a coaching program that was rolled out to 2,100 individuals at Goldman Sachs.

Madeleine received her Master’s of Science degree in Neuroleadership from Middlesex University and her Bachelor’s degree in Theater and Performance Studies from Georgetown University. She is a Certified Mentor Coach and a graduate of Coach University.

Ruth Ann Harnisch

Ruth Ann Harnisch is an American investor, activist, philanthropist, writer, and coach. A former news anchor and radio talk-show host, according to Forbes she was one of the first women to anchor evening news and had an award winning career in radio and print media. Her on-air reporting for WTVF-TV in Nashville, Tennessee resulted in an Emmy nomination, after which she opened a pro bono coaching practice as a professional coach. Harnisch founded and is president of the Harnisch Foundation, through which she founded programs such as Awesome Without Borders, SupporTED,[3] and Funny Girls. Among other grants, the institution has funded the formation of the coaching department at McLean Hospital and the journalism departments at Kennesaw State University and Baruch College. Earning the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Coaching in 2016, the year prior MSNBC named her one of 11 women's rights activists you should know.

Sandy Vilas

Sandy Vilas is one of the pioneers of the coaching industry, having been involved at the inception of Coach U in 1992. Sandy trained with the founder of Coach U, Thomas J Leonard. He began a full-time coaching career in 1994 and built the largest coaching practice in the world. Having built a successful coaching practice, Sandy started to look for avenues to share what he had learned in an environment that offers the highest quality of coach training available. In 1996, he purchased Coach U, and under his guidance, CoachInc.com, which encompasses Coach U, Corporate Coach U and its affiliates in Europe, Singapore, Japan, and Australia, has evolved to become the largest and most respected coach training company in the world. Sandy, now enjoying retirement, loved supporting entrepreneurs and professionals in dramatically increasing their business and enhancing the quality of their lives.

Jory Des Jardins

Jory Des Jardins has invested over 20 years into launching, building, and scaling disruptive media, digital communities, and emerging tech companies. Today, she serves as CMO of Community-as-a-Service platform Countable.

Jory pioneered social marketing as Co-Founder and President of BlogHer, a media marketplace representing a community of thousands of digital influencers and creators. She was the primary evangelist of social influence to agencies and brands and grew strategic partnerships with top advertisers and revenue partners. She led the operational transition into the more data-driven, performance-based campaign model that underpins today’s playbook for influencer marketing.

Later, she scaled the marketing organizations, and the developer, founder, and customer communities for Ethereum venture studio ConsenSys and AWS Startups. As an operator, her passion is developing the strategy, partnerships, tools, positioning and teams necessary to scale and serve business communities, be they enterprises, brands, digital influencers, entrepreneurs, developers, content creators, local merchants, or “gig” professionals.

As an investor Jory is passionate about making capital funding and business building resources available to talented, underrepresented founders. She has advised dozens of startups, currently The @ Company, a privacy protocol that enables consumers to own and control their own data. As VC in Residence at the W Fund, she focuses on “Democratizing Tech” that makes marketplaces, tech services, and business opportunities available to underserved communities. She has advised scaling startups in digital media, consumer marketplaces, eCommerce, Blockchain/token-based economies, and AR/VR/MR. Among the companies she has formally advised are PracticalXR, AIKON (cross-chain cryptowallet), Lifescape, and the women entrepreneurs' network SheWorx.

A former book and magazine editor and blogger, she writes two biweekly newsletters: This Woman’s Work (https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/this-woman-s-work-6684620255760932864/), which explores tech trends and culture, and PAUSE (https://jory.substack.com/), personal essays on tech, marketing, fairness, and hormones.

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Sponsor us by making a tax-deductible donation. We rely on the generous financial support of our donors to help us bring coaching to nonprofits around the world.

join a committee

It takes a team to serve so many nonprofits across the globe, while raising funds to keep us sustainable, retaining volunteer coaches to deliver top-tier support. In order to ensure that The Coach Initiative is a success, we have a number of different committees meeting and working throughout the year.

become a volunteer at large

Ad hoc committees and sub-committees are created to support the needs of our organization over a finite period of time. We can always use volunteer support from individuals to accomplish discrete tasks and fulfill temporary initiatives.

Spread the word

One of the simplest ways to contribute to the success of The Coach Initiative is to let others know that we exist. By telling others about our organization and its mission, you can help us increase donations, serve more nonprofits and expand our base of volunteers.