Amanda D'Annucci-Kean
Amanda D'Annucci-Kean is the Mel King Institute’s newest CDC Board Development instructor. She is a lifelong New Yorker, fundraiser-turned-consultant, and her interest in community building and mission-driven organizations first began during her childhood. She recalls, “I grew up in the Bronx in a single parent household in an apartment with three tiny bedrooms and nine people. I benefited from a lot of different nonprofit public service programs. So for me, I always had a closeness to the [community building] space that was professional, but it started personal.”
Amanda began her community development career as a youth facilitator for Dance for Peace (now called Move This World), and she quickly became a program director involved with fundraising and managing partnerships with schools. This role was where she remembers learning the ins and outs of the nonprofit sector. From there, she moved to
“a workforce development organization as one of the first fundraising hires, and that has been a theme of my career, being the first hire in a place or the first hire to develop fundraising and sales mechanisms. [I] fell in love with the nonprofit sector, but also saw its flaws, which is why I do what I do now… I love staying close to the mission, but I want to make sure that the sector is sustainable and works for the people that work in and around it.”
After working at a few other nonprofit and for-profit organizations in similar roles and gaining more insight into how organizations function, Amanda established ADK Consulting and pivoted to full-time consulting. Her clients range from workforce development organizations, nonprofits, and even her local farm. Her work includes everything from being a trainer and guest speaker to being a “fractional employee—especially on the development side. [Fundraising is] really hard right now and not all nonprofits can afford a full-time development person. I get a vast experience, which I think is why training has attracted me. I'm able to speak to different [organizational] levels.”
One of the groups that Amanda has become familiar with during her time as a consultant is nonprofit board members. She has taught several finance and fundraising training courses for individual boards, but when she found our call for a CDC Board Finance instructor on LinkedIn, she was excited about the opportunity to work with board members from different organizations. Her next MKI workshop, CDC Board Oversight Under Pressure: Audits, Contracts, Procurement, and Risk Governance on May 20, will cover a practical risk governance framework that is designed to help CDC boards prioritize oversight and strengthen accountability and decision-making.
Amanda has two kids and three giant dogs. In her free time, she enjoys spending time in nature and volunteering at her local farm and dog rescue.