Join us for a half-day workshop focused on how to move your board to the next level. We will learn strategies to increase board engagement, how to use limited meeting time effectively, and how to ensure that your board is preparing for what it needs to be in the future.

As organizations face increasing demands, limited resources, and a competitive fundraising landscape, it’s crucial to design intentional governance strategies that maximize board impact. Local New Hampshire nonprofit leaders will share their successful board transformation stories and practical approaches to purpose-driven leadership.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn and connect! Hosted in partnership with the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits.

• 9:00-9:30 a.m: Check-in, networking, continental Breakfast
• 9:30 a.m: Program begins
• Lunch included

About the Presenters:

Kellie Wardman, PCC, ACTC, is a senior consultant and certified coach with over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She worked for 10 years at The Granite YMCA in operations and as COO. Kellie also served as a resource director for the YMCA of the USA and the Northern New England YMCA Alliance supporting all Ys in New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. For the last five years, she has worked with DBD Group, supporting non-profits across the country focusing on strategic planning, board development, staff and culture work, executive coaching, fundraising, and more. Kellie lives in Dunbarton.

Diane Fitzpatrick is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Boys & Girls Club in Manchester. Her crucial role at the Club is creating, communicating, implementing, and sustaining strategic initiatives. Diane has over 30 years of experience in higher education, marketing, and business-to-business development. Before her position at the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, Diane was the Dean of Admission at New England College. Diane is a dynamic leader who effectively and successfully managed the demands of a goal-oriented, high-pressure management team while facilitating various business-to-business relationships. Diane was named Excellence in Small Business in Nonprofit and NH 200 Most Influential Business Leaders.

Michael St. Onge, CIMA®️, CPWA®️, is a Senior Vice President and Private Client Relationship Manager at NHTrust, bringing over 25 years of expertise in wealth and investment management. With a strong background in guiding high-net-worth individuals, institutions, and non-profits, Michael specializes in creating tailored financial strategies that align with clients' unique objectives. He currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Boys & Girls Club of Manchester and is a Finance Committee member for the Castle Preservation Society (Castle in the Clouds.) His extensive volunteer experience and leadership on these boards have equipped him with unique insights into building focused, purpose-driven boards for non-profits, ensuring strategic growth and financial sustainability.

Bean Foundation Supported Lecture

John Kaag is Professor of Philosophy at UMASS Lowell and the award-winning author of several books, including American Philosophy: A Love Story, Hiking with Nietzsche, and American Bloods. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Outside Magazine, and elsewhere. His keynote lecture is about Perez Blood, the recluse astronomer and friend of Henry David Thoreau. Dr. Kaag explains the Blood family’s pivotal influence on American history, from the distant past of the Revolutionary War to the twentieth century.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →

Professor Alexandra Locking is a member of the History Department whose work focuses on the eleventh and twelfth centuries in medieval Europe. Her research focuses on how religious beliefs and medieval ideas of gender influenced the way people thought about power and rulership in a Christian society. Her current book project focuses on how religious reform challenged and changed the roles of elite laywomen in medieval society. She is also exploring how the early crusading movement grew out of and affected concepts about gender and race in the medieval European worldview.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →

A panel of Saint Anselm College Students Moderated by Professor Georgia Henley, English Department

Georgia Henley is a member of the English Department who specializes in the languages and literatures of medieval Britain. She employs digital humanities and book-historical methods to uncover the literary networks that connected England to its earliest colonies. She is the author and co-author of numerous scholarly publications, and a Senior Fellow in the Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography. Her current book project, Reimagining the Past in the Anglo-Welsh Borderlands (forthcoming with Oxford University Press), examines how Anglo-Welsh families reimagined the Welsh past in order to influence the political landscape of the Welsh borderlands.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →

Presenter: Professor Katherine Bentz, Fine Arts Department

Kate Bentz is Professor of Art History at Saint Anselm College and the Academic Director of Saint Anselm’s study abroad program in Tuscania, Italy. Her research focuses on urbanism and landscape history in sixteenth-century Italy, and she has published her work in scholarly journals such as Sixteenth-Century Journal and The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and has received fellowships and grants from institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collections, Villa I Tatti-The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and The Getty Research Institute.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →

Presenter: Dr Vincent Colapietro '73

Vincent Colapietro is a 1973 graduate of Saint Anselm College and a Liberal Arts Research Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University in the Departments of Philosophy and African American Studies. Through the Center for the Humanities at the University of Rhode Island, he has a teaching appointment in the departments of English, Writing & Rhetoric, and Philosophy.

In the course of his career he has authored several books and over two hundred articles. In 2004 he was honored by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy with the Herbert W. Schneider Award for lifetime achievement.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →

Presenter: Jennifer Mulitello

Jennifer Militello is the current Poet Laureate of New Hampshire. She is the author of the hybrid collection Identifying the Pathogen, named a finalist for the 2024 FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize (forthcoming, 2025), The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021) and the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize (Dzanc Books, 2019), as well as four previous books of poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous national journals in the U.S. and abroad. She has taught at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the Rhode Island School of Design, and is currently a faculty member in the MFA program at New England College.

Learn more about the Big Thought Series →