Speakers
Linda I. Gibbs
Deputy Mayor
Health and Human Services
Keynote Speaker, 2013 Leadership Conference
Linda I. Gibbs is the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services for the City of New York, and oversees the City’s public health, social safety net, economic independence, and juvenile and adult corrections agencies. Since graduating from SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Buffalo School of Law, Gibbs has held numerous positions in New York City government including as Deputy Director at the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Commissioner of the child welfare agency, and Commissioner of Homeless Services. She is the chief architect of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s innovative strategies to reduce poverty and the disparities in outcomes for young black and Latino men, including launching the nation’s first Social Impact Bond. She effectively coordinates agencies around the Mayor’s ambitious public health efforts, and created a new Office of Food Policy. She has also improved the City’s business relationship with the numerous non-profits providing front line services to citizens and created new technology tools to improve social service delivery. Gibbs is a resident of Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband and two children.
Gary Bagley
Executive Director
New York Cares
Workshop: Meet the ED – Roundtable Discussion (Session 2 only)
Gary Bagley joined New York Cares in 2004 and served in the capacities of Senior Director of Programs and Associate Executive Director before becoming the Executive Director in 2008. Gary directs all aspects of the organization’s work, including strategy, programming, fundraising, public relations, finance/operations, and board relations. He is responsible for tripling annual volunteer service delivery, filling more than 150,000 volunteer positions on 18,000 projects and serving over 1,300 nonprofit organizations, schools, and government agencies last year. Gary led New York Cares in garnering The 2009 New York Times Company Nonprofit Excellence Award for Overall Management Excellence and the 2010 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. Gary has over 15 years of nonprofit management experience, including positions at Young Audiences New York and TADA! Youth Theater. He holds an M.P.A from Baruch College of The City University of New York, where he is now an Adjunct Lecturer.
Joel Berg
Executive Director
New York City Coalition Against Hunger
Workshop: Food Poverty in New York City
Joel Berg is a nationally recognized leader and media spokesperson in the fields of domestic hunger, food insecurity, obesity, poverty, food-related economic development, national service, and volunteerism. He is executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also author of All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?, the definitive and most well-reviewed book on American hunger of the last decade.
John Berglund
Emergency Services Director
The Salvation Army, Greater New York Division
Workshop: Effects of Hurricane Sandy on New York City
John Berglund serves as the Emergency Services Director for The Salvation Army, Greater New York Division. Over the past decade, he served as the director of emergency services in the Southwest Division (Phoenix, AZ), as a territorial trainer in the Western Territory (Long Beach, CA), and as the national emergency services director at National Headquarters (Alexandria, VA.) John also serves as a team leader, advisor and trainer for The Salvation Army’s International Emergency Services (London). John has a thirty year history in nonprofit executive positions and taught nonprofit management at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona from 1995 to 2005. He makes his home in Manhattan with his wife and two children.
Peggy Defay
Client Advocate, Positive Step Program
Partnership for the Homeless
Workshop: Resources for the Homeless Population
Ms. Defy completed her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida. Since completing her degree, Ms. Defy has been involved in many opportunities in the public health sector, specifically working with members of the community affected by the HIV epidemic. Ms. Defy spent over two years working internationally with the United States Peace Corps where she was a community health and HIV/AIDS worker. She has worked on projects to empower and promote healthy behaviors amongst women and children in underserved communities. Today she is working as a client advocate with the Positive Step program at the Partnership for the Homeless where she continues to assist in promoting healthy behaviors, but most importantly empowers the clients that she serves.
Christine D’Onofrio, Ph.D
Senior Research Associate
NYC Center for Economic Opportunity/Mayor’s Fund
Workshop: Impacts of Poverty Policies at State and Local Levels
Christine D'Onofrio is a Senior Research Analyst with the Poverty Research Unit of the Center for Economic Opportunity. Her work involves estimating the effect of taxes and tax credits on the poverty rate, and the relationship between tax policy in the social safety net. She is co-author of several papers on the importance of alternative measures of poverty. Previously, she worked as a tax and revenue analyst for the New York City Council. Dr. D'Onofrio received her Ph. D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research.
Tyler Fereira
Program Manager,
College All-Stars
The Urban Dove
Workshop: Bridging the Gap Between Volunteers and High-needs Clients
Tyler has been working in college admissions for over ten years, and began his career in the admissions offices at UCLA, the Actors Studio Drama School and the New School. For five years Tyler was the Assistant Director of Admissions at Eugene Lang College where he oversaw west coast recruitment, the development of the school’s promotional materials, and planning all major on campus admissions events. Since 2007 Tyler has worked at the Urban Dove, a not-for-profit youth services organization, where he has helped develop and implement a comprehensive, two-year, college awareness and preparation program that has helped hundreds of at risk New York City youth make college a reality in their lives. In the past five years, the program has had a college enrollment rate of over 95%, and has seen its students awarded upwards of a half million dollars annually in scholarship funds from colleges and other outside sources, including some prominent regional and national providers. Tyler holds a BA in Theater from UCLA, and an MFA in Playwriting from the New School.
Patrick Hart
Social Innovation Fund Sustainability Coordinator
NYC Center for Economic Opportunity/Mayor’s Fund
Workshop: Impacts of Poverty Policies at State and Local Levels
Patrick Hart is the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity’s (CEO) Social Innovation Fund (SIF) Sustainability Coordinator. In this capacity, he works with CEO staff and program coordinators to help CEO’s five SIF programs remain strong. The five SIF programs are all based on promising anti-poverty program models and through the SIF these are now being replicated in New York City and seven other cities across the country. Patrick works with internal and external stakeholders to ensure that the SIF programs continue to spark program and policy change at the federal, state, and local level that improve the effectiveness of efforts to alleviate poverty. Previously, he served as a policy analyst for the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, where his work focused on policy issues including foreclosure, homelessness, transit-oriented development, and how zoning affects affordability. Mr. Hart holds a Bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a Master in Public Policy degree from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Sara Johnsen
Research Assistant
Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness (ICPH)
Workshop: The History of Volunteerism in Fighting Poverty in New York City
Sara Johnsen is a research assistant at the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness, where she researches and writes articles placing contemporary social policy debates in the context of history, and explores the impact of 20th century anti-poverty programs on low-income families. She is currently working on a website on the history of American poverty slated for launch in 2013. She previously worked as a staff writer and education coordinator at the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Johnsen graduated the University of Chicago with a B.A. in History with honors.
Wes Moe
Director, Volunteer Relations
New York Cares
Welcome Remarks, 2013 Leadership Conference
Wes Moe has been a New York Cares volunteer and staff member since 2007. As Director of Volunteer Relations, Mr. Moe and his team are responsible for the training, recognition, and the leadership development of New York Cares volunteers. Prior to New York Cares, Mr. Moe served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jordan and an AmeriCorps NCCC member. Mr. Moe holds a B.A. in Sociology and History from Loyola College in Maryland.
Yohimbe Sampson
Resident Service Director
Spring Creek Gardens
Workshop: Bridging the Gap Between Volunteers and High-needs Clients
Yohimbe Sampson is the Resident Service Director at Spring Creek Gardens. SCG is a 2,000 tenant section 8/affordable housing community in the East New York section of Brooklyn, NY. His duties are fund raising, acquiring partnerships and developing social, arts and education programs for Domain Community Services and the youth, adults and seniors of Spring Creek Gardens. He is a former history teacher and the founder of the Freedom Academic Movement (FAM). He has designed programs and curricula for the Department Of Education. In addition he has collaborated with a number of NYC Organizations such as: PASE, TASC, Caribbean Cultural Center, Abyssinian Development Corporation, The Leadership Program, The Dwyer Cultural Center, Community Works and Lincoln Center. Yohimbe Sampson is also a NYC based artist and co-founder of the music groups Game Rebellion and Meridian.
Ethan G. Sribnick
Senior Research Associate
Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness (ICPH)
Workshop: The History of Volunteerism in Fighting Poverty in New York City
A published historian with expertise in child welfare and public policy, Ethan Sribnick is researching the history of family poverty and homelessness in New York City. He has conducted extensive research into the history of public policy surrounding children’s issues, and his work has been published in numerous scholarly journals and presented at conferences. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Virginia, where he wrote his dissertation on child welfare policy between 1945 and 1980. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago.
Anthony Tassi
Executive Director
Literacy Partners
Workshop: Low-Literacy as a Source of Poverty
Anthony Tassi serves as the Chief Executive, setting the vision and direction of Literacy Partners and managing all of its programming. He is responsible for a growing array of classes and other services that help more than 1,800 adults from across the city, and from dozens of countries around the world, strengthen the literacy and language skills they need to improve all facets of their lives.
Anthony previously served as the Founding Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Adult Education from March 2006 through October 2010, and was responsible for convincing Mayor Bloomberg to create a central office to coordinate and promote best practices among nine city agencies and numerous nonprofit literacy programs. He designed literacy programs for several city initiatives and championed re-entry education within City Hall. Anthony created and supervised the production of “We Are New York”, an Emmy-award winning educational television series for low-literate immigrants. He also drafted the Mayoral Order requiring city agencies to use plain language in essential public communications in order to make government services more accessible to adults with limited literacy skills.
Prior to his role with the Mayor, he spent many years in the health arena working at both public and private enterprises, which culminated in a role advising then Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott on health-related issues.
Nancy Wackstein
Executive Director
United Neighborhood Houses
Workshop: Settlement Houses in NYC: Over 100 Years of Fighting Poverty (Session 1 only)
Nancy Wackstein has been Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses of New York (UNH) since 2002. UNH is the federation of the City’s 37 settlement houses and community centers. Prior to her UNH appointment, she was the Executive Director of Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, a settlement house on Manhattan’s East Side, for eleven years.
Ms. Wackstein served as Director of the Mayor’s Office on Homelessness and SRO Housing from 1990-1991 under Mayor David N. Dinkins. She was Senior Policy Advisor for Human Services in Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins’ Office from 1986-1989, where she was also Staff Director for the Task Force on Housing for Homeless Families.
Ms. Wackstein received a bachelor’s degree from SUNY Binghamton where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and a master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Social Work.
Ms. Wackstein currently serves on the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations, including the United Way of New York City and is Immediate Past Board Chair of the Human Services Council of New York. Ms. Wackstein was appointed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2003 to the New York City Youth Board and to the Citywide Coordinating Committee to End Chronic Homelessness, in 2006 to the New York City Commission for Economic Opportunity and in 2009 to the NYC Commission on LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth.
In 2009 Ms. Wackstein was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Columbia University School of Social Work Hall Alumni Association and in 2011 was named by the National Association of Social Workers - NYC as a Top Leader in the profession. Ms. Wackstein is the recipient of several professional awards, notably the Samuel and May Rudin Community Service Award for exceptional service to the homeless, the recognition award from the Settlement Housing Fund for her efforts to end homelessness, and the annual award from The Council on Homeless Policies and Services.
