Elissa Leif Email & Phone Number

Washington D.C. Metro Area

MiniMatters is a video marketing and production company serving associations, nonprofits, government agencies and businesses in the Maryland-Washington, D.C.-northern Virginia region. We consult on online communications strategies and technical issues to build client capacity in video communications, and have expertise in instructional design and ASL video production.

Alexandria, Va

Silver Spring, Md

My recent consulting jobs for Mind Farm have included a stint as interim executive director of a community-based child abuse prevention and investigation nonprofit, in which I re-organized the organization’s development processes and introduced fund-raising software, and a fundraising feasibility study for the national expansion of an after-school program model.

Responsible for all forms of fundraising for a community-based arts education nonprofit with eight staff and a budget of $1.4 million. Work includes extensive grant-writing, coordinating of an annual campaign and outreach to individual donors, as well as budgeting and working with the board of directors. After coming in at a point of significant deficit in FY2007, I have been able to systematize and promote more strategic fundraising, resulting in several new funders, and helping the organization to pay off a $30,000 line of credit and move forward strategically with an eye to new areas of work.

Under a U.S. Department of Education Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, directed content and focus group research as well as a small research study on children’s cooking and nutrition knowledge for small, women-owned television production company. Worked with a national advisory board of experts in nutrition, obesity, cooking, and children’s media as well as veteran executive producers from Sesame Street. Pilot was successfully completed in May 2007, and is currently being pitched to television and cable networks.

As the recipient of one of 10 annual 18-month “Community Fellowships” from the Open Society Institute, raised funds for and directed a journalism program exposing 4th-8th grade students in the low-income neighborhood of Cherry Hill to the broader world around them, to journalism and leadership skills, and to skills in design and production of a newsletter and Web site. During the 2003-04 school year, raised all funds for and established partnerships that facilitated a bilingual video-conference involving the St. Veronica’s students and other student journalists from Japan, London and New York, as well as a journalism trip to Japan for four students from the Cherry Hill community.

Raised funds for and helped the Center to establish, evaluate and institutionalize a unique "ESL Literacy Program" for the Center's most disadvantaged students--those with limited literacy skills in their native languages. Work included grant and report writing, baseline testing of students, training of volunteer tutors, evaluation of student progress, and developing the students' school newsletter into a more interactive format.

•Raised $300,000+ to support Children's Express activities in the Asia-Pacific region and coordinated establishment of full Children's Express bureau in Tokyo, Japan.•Conceived and directed a youth journalism project called "Learn from Us" designed to bring youth views on major education policy issues to adult decision-makers. The project enabled a diverse group of young people from three U.S. communities and Tokyo to cover education issues in their own regions as well as cross-culturally.•Traveled with U.S. young people in Japan and Japanese young people in the U.S., assisting them with translation and story editing concerning education issues (fall and winter 2001) and the U.S. Republican Presidential convention (summer 2000).

•Wrote narrative portions of government and foundation grants raising over $750,000 to develop new and existing programs of the organization.•Launched and managed the Japan-U.S. Nonprofit Internship Program, the organization's first core program. The program brought more than 200 college students and staff and volunteers at Japanese nonprofit organizations for internships in more than 100 U.S. nonprofits .•Conceived and implemented a pilot "reverse internship" program bringing U.S. college students and nonprofit leaders to Japan for month-long internships in nonprofit organizations.•Conceived the "Fellowships Creating Partnerships Program," JUCEE's flagship program linking U.S. and Japanese nonprofit organizations in long-term partnerships aimed at achieving specific policy or programmatic outcomes.•Developed orientation and training programs for each program to familiarize interns and fellows with nonprofit management and key U.S. social and policy issues.

•Played a central role reorienting, developing, administering and producing all English materials for a grant program for NGOs conducting literacy projects in developing countries that dispersed approximately $1,000,000/year in 40-50 grants.•Evaluated grassroots literacy projects in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and China and built network of project leaders.•Primary liaison between UNESCO and the Federation in the organization of a "World Conference of NGOs" involved in literacy in Tokyo in September, 1995.•Co-author of UNESCO guide to establishing grassroots literacy centers.

Ed.M., Administration, Planning And Social Policy

Ba History