Sue Sena, Principal

Prior to founding Sena Consulting in the fall of 2007, Sue worked for 15 years as a fund-raising and communications executive in the non-profit sector. Ten of those years were spent in the mental health advocacy and service field, as the Director of Individual Giving and Communications for Fountain House, and the Development and Communications Manager for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. During her tenure at Fountain House revenue from individual donors rose from $230,000 to over $1 million per year, and overall private revenue increased from $2.8 to $4.1 million annually. She also served as the Associate Director of Major Gifts for Planned Parenthood Federation of America where she managed the stewardship and solicitation of a national file of 250 donors with annual gifts of $10,000 or more. Early in her career she managed a diverse team of urban youth volunteers with the inaugural NJ Youth Corps/AmeriCorps program in Jersey City, NJ. She has experience managing multiple fund-raising and communications campaigns for organizations with budgets ranging from $300,000 to $15 million.

In 2002, Sue and a group of New York City activists founded the award-winning, non-profit organization, Swish, which creates opportunities for straight allies to make a difference in the global LGBT rights movement. She has served on several non-profit Boards of Directors and currently serves on the board of Swish and the Communications Committee of the NYC Anti-Violence Project. She is a member of the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Women in Financial Development NY, and the Non-Profit Technology Network, and is a graduate of the leadership training and development programs of Landmark Education. She recently received a mini-MBA in Social Media Marketing from Rutgers University's Center for Management Development.

Sena Consulting, LLC was the recipient of an Honorable Mention prize in the 2007 Queens Start Up! Business Plan Competition sponsored by the Queens Economic Development Corporation and The Citi Foundation.

 

Adam Mason Robinson, Project Manager

Adam Mason Robinson is a declared do-gooder with over 4 years of professional experience within the not- for-profit industry. Originally an aficionado of film theory, Adam traveled to the remote republic of the Marshall Islands where he taught English and art to 5th and 6th graders. It was here that he built an appreciation and respect for service and the philanthropic sector. Upon his return to the states in the fall of 2008, Adam developed a documentary photography afterschool enrichment program and won funding to implement it at two schools with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Fast forward a couple more years and Adam is completing his MA in Nonprofit Management from Milano: The New School for Management and Urban Policy. Adam brings creativity, strategic thinking, and skilled project management to all of Sena Consulting's clients.

Associates

Michael Washburn

Michael Washburn, President of Washburn Carmichael, is a 30-year veteran of nonprofit consulting. He has worked with more than 225 local, national, and international organizations in legal services, arts and culture, human services, mental health, youth and education organizations, and human rights. A former executive director of two international affairs organizations, Mr. Washburn is known for his analytical skills, creative and strategic thinking, and his understanding of organizational culture. Specialties include board and staff development, governance, major gifts and capital campaigns, financial planning, and communications. He is a former Vice President, Chair of the Governance and Public Policy Committee, and chair of strategic planning for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Greater New York Chapter. He is president of the American Center for Photography. He received his BA from Harvard and an MPA from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Amy Tripi
Amy Tripi, President of Tripi Consulting, LLC, has been helping non-profits raise funds for nearly 20 years.  Amy wrote her first direct mail piece while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, and since then has dedicated her professional life to direct marketing fundraising. Amy has worked with many international, national, and local non-profits, including: City Harvest, Coalition for the Homeless, EngenderHealth, Fountain House, Girls Incorporated, Grand Street Settlement, Guttmacher Institute, Helen Keller International, International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region, The Legal Aid Society, ORBIS International, Population Communications International, Project Renewal, and Starlight Children's Foundation.Amy recently completed eight years of service as a member of the Board of Directors of the Direct Marketing Fundraisers Association (DMFA), an alliance of more than 400 non-profit organizations, consultants, and industry suppliers. She served as DMFA's President from 2002-03. Currently Amy co-chairs the Direct Mail Track of Fundraising Day in New York, America's largest one-day conference on philanthropy.  She frequently writes articles and speaks at workshops and seminars about direct marketing fundraising. With a focus on excellent customer service, Tripi Consulting, LLC offers a broad range of fundraising services from direct mail copywriting, design, and production, to strategic planning and analysis.

Erin O’Toole
For the past ten years, Erin has dedicated her career to strengthening and expanding the fundraising capacity of New York City-based non-profit organizations. Producing strategic plans, development plans, mail campaigns, special events, board development and donor cultivation initiatives as well as foundation, corporate, and government grant proposals, Erin has won considerable funding, including six and seven figure grants, for the organizations she has had the pleasure to work with. To date, Erin’s client list consists of 20 of New York’s non-profit organizations, from start-up groups to non-profits with operating budgets ranging from $600,000 to $20 million. Clients have included, Latino Commission on AIDS, Right to Vote Campaign, Art Start, Art for Progress, The Girls and Boys Projects, Fountain House, Brennan Center for Justice, Housing Works, and the Institute for Labor and the Community. In the capacity of grant writer, Erin has won funding from every leading New York-based foundation, including The Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, New York Community Trust, and The Atlantic Philanthropies.

Elaine Morales
Elaine has nearly 20 years of experience as a grant writer and development professional. She began her career at Cornell University Medical College (now the Weill Medical College of Cornell University) managing a major donor initiative. She worked for two years as an Associate at Shakin, Lichty & Boreyko Consultants, where she worked with clients including the Harlem School for the Arts, Fresh Air Fund, Self-Help Community Services, and the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

She has provided writing and fundraising consulting services to 30 New York area social service and educational organizations, including Asphalt Green, The Legal Aid Society, Fountain House, SAGE – Queens, Northside Center for Child Development, and Goddard Riverside Community Center. Writing projects include newsletters, annual reports, foundation proposals and materials, and government proposals. She has written successful proposals to secure seven-figure awards from the United States Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Center initiative and six-figure awards from notable New York City foundations. She has experience in managing all aspects of institutional fundraising programs for agencies with operating budgets from $2 million to $20 million. She holds a BA Degree, cum laude, from Princeton University in U.S. History and lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.