We fill the gap between large consulting firms, which may be too expensive for nonprofits, and independent practitioners who are too small to offer the breadth and depth of experience many nonprofits need. Our team combines over 25 years of experience in the private sector with over 75 years of experience working with non profits. All engagements are led by a principal, with our network of associates providing specialized expertise where needed. We work closely with client leadership with as much time on-site as possible. Our offices are in Washington, Princeton, and New York.
PATRICK BERNUTH has had over 25 years of finance, marketing, strategy and general management experience in the private sector. He founded Bernuth & Williamson in 1997, convinced that there are private sector management tools and techniques that can be of significant benefit to non-profit organizations. As the firm expanded over the past 12 years, his work has involved extensive operational planning, change management and development work for a wide variety of non-profits including cultural institutions, universities, and research, social service and environmental organizations He has played a principal role in the initiation and assessment of non-profit business ventures and has written on strategy and management issues for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Learned Publishing and other journals. During his 14 years at CBS, Inc. he held a variety of editorial and management positions including President, Praeger Publishers. He is a graduate of Princeton University and has an MBA from Columbia University. Mr. Bernuth has been a member of the Executive Council of the American Association of Publisher’s Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division and currently serves on the Association’s Public Issues Task Force. He is a member of the Publishing Advisory Board at the Brookings Institute. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University Press and was President of that Board for over 10 years.
DAVID WILLIAMSON brings two decades of experience as a practitioner, consultant, academic, and board member to his consulting work with nonprofits and foundations. Since 2002, David has been Managing Director of Bernuth & Williamson, working with clients of issues of organizational strategy and positioning. He teaches nonprofit management at Georgetown University’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership and taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. He also served as a Senior Fellow in the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program and was a Fellow at the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria. During his 13-year career at The Nature Conservancy, David served in a variety of senior management capacities, including terms as Director of Communications (1997-2002) and as acting Vice President for Marketing. The lead author of four organization-wide strategic planning initiatives, he also helped design and launch two capital campaigns. His redesign of Nature Conservancy magazine won four national magazine awards from Folio. David serves in leadership capacities on several nonprofit boards and advises two private foundations. He graduated with honors from the Phillips Exeter Academy and is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University.
DOUGLAS MEYER is a marketing and communications specialist who for nearly fifteen years has helped nonprofit organizations develop cost-effective strategies that deliver priority messages to target audiences, and produce extraordinary results. In addition to his marketing experience, he brings with him a depth of knowledge on a range of issues related to nonprofit management, environmental sustainability and economic development. Douglas teaches nonprofit marketing in the Department of Management & Business at Skidmore College, and has been a featured speaker at various national and international conferences. Prior to starting his work with Bernuth & Williamson in 2004, Douglas was with The Nature Conservancy, where he managed media relations for the organization’s 28 international programs, and led outreach efforts for priority initiatives and special projects, including the critically acclaimed photography exhibit In Response to Place. He also has extensive experience in film and television production, and has been a contributor to National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition. Fluent in Spanish and conversant in Portuguese, Douglas graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and Spanish and later received a master’s degree with honors from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
BETSY GARSIDE has worked for more than 20 years in leadership roles at nonprofits and in the private sector. As Vice President, Communications & Marketing at The Wilderness Society (TWS), Betsy led that organization’s first brand-strategy effort, clarifying and advancing TWS’s position in the conservation arena. She also doubled the organization’s electronic outreach program, integrating on-line advocacy and fund development. Prior to that, she led communications and outreach at American Farmland Trust, adding expertise in sustainable agriculture to her extensive food-marketing background. In her work with organizations and progressive companies, Betsy defines and develops research-based strategies to build strong brands. She launched her career at Ketchum Communications, working on marketing and issues communications in New York and Washington. Betsy currently serves as board treasurer of a small foundation; on the marketing task force for International Association of Business Communicators; and as a Citizen Forester with Washington’s Casey Trees. Ms. Garside holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in American history from the University of Pennsylvania.
THOMAS BRENDLER is a consultant specializing in communications and strategic development for conservation and social change organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the National Forest Foundation, and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, among others. Over more than a decade he built and managed the National Network of Forest Practitioners, an association of nonprofits, small businesses, agencies and researchers working on community-based economic development and collaborative natural resource management. He was also Executive Director of Groundwork Providence, which provides environmental education and job training to low-income youth and unemployed adults across the city. He co-founded a global coalition of peasants, communities, and indigenous peoples at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and was a member of the U.S. delegation to the most recent World Forestry Congress. He holds a Master’s Degree in Forestry from Yale and B.A. in English from Tufts.
JOANNE MAZURKI leads a consulting practice dedicated to guiding her clients’ work in building programs that address some of the most compelling public health and social issues of our time. She has worked for over 15 years in corporate, nonprofit and academic environments, with extensive experience in product marketing, consumer merchandising, and public relations at two of the nation’s best-known companies, Bloomingdale’s and Avon. At Avon she created and directed Avon’s Breast Cancer Crusade. Her other clients have included Abbott Laboratories (pharmaceuticals) the American Legacy Foundation (smoking prevention and cessation), Duke University School of Nursing, M.A.C. Cosmetics (HIV/AIDS), the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure (breast cancer). She has lectured widely on social entrepreneurship and cause-related marketing to business and non-profit professionals as well as to students in the United States and globally. She is a graduate of Duke University.
HENRY REATH ‘s consulting specialties are derived from over 30 years of general management and entrepreneurial experience. He has significant experience with a wide variety of both for-profit and not-for-profit operating cultures. He has worked with both large and small organizations, helping them to understand their fundamental points of leverage and improve their business models. Mr. Reath served as President and Publisher of the Doubleday Publishing Company. He later founded Collectors Reprints, a publisher of direct-marketed book programs that he subsequently sold to a market leader. In recent years his consulting, for both for-profit companies and not-for-profit client organizations, has focused on the relationship between business model metrics and organizational culture as a key success factor. A graduate of Princeton University (BA, Philosophy), he is on the board of Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, a non-profit, environmental publisher in Washington, DC.
ALYSON HEYREND has served as Communications Director for Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) since 2000, and is responsible coordinating for all aspects of media relations, message development, and outreach to various constituencies. Ms. Heyrend’s media experience dates to the late 1970s, when she was an award-winning news reporter and weekend anchor on the ABC and NBC affiliates in Salt Lake City. During the 1990s, she worked as director of development and communications for the Utah and Idaho Chapters of The Nature Conservancy. In 1998, she was recruited to join the Conservancy’s national communications staff, where she was responsible for promoting its ecoregional conservation initiative as well as securing media placements for the organization’s highest-profile projects. Ms. Heyrend holds a B.A. in journalism from Utah State University.
MICHELLE MCKENNA has extensive editorial and public relations experience with both Princeton and Oxford University Presses as well as Smithsonian Books. She has worked with an exceptionally wide variety of authors including Victor Davis Hanson, Simon Winchester, John Heath and Gustavus McLeod. She managed the publicity and public relations campaign for the launch of the online edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. She has worked in development at Rollins College and, with two colleagues, started the Department of Education and Outreach at the Orlando Museum of Art. She has an MA (Fine Arts) from the University of Montana and an MA (Liberal Studies) from Rollins College.