Lunch with Community Links staff (L to R): Nikki Love, Josh Levinson, Toby Portner, Melissa May White, Tia BlankenfeldNow you know my vacation last week to Hawaii wouldn’t have been complete without hanging out with some awesome nonprofit folks. I even got a chance to meet Nikki Love (far left in the photo above)! No, she is not Courtney’s long lost rocker sis, but Director of Operations at Community Links Hawaii. Headed by Josh Levinson, formerly Deputy Director of DC Appleseed, the group is doing some really cool work to engage & support the nonprofit community. Now keep your eyes on Nikki Love – she is really an emerging leader to be reckoned with. Along with her day job she is embarking on a new effort to reactivate Common Cause in Hawaii!
Community Links Hawai`i (CLH) is a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality, cost-effective administrative infrastructure, shared services, and organizational development to nonprofit groups that share a commitment to a just, healthy, and sustainable Hawai`i. Their goal is to leverage shared systems and technical assistance, provided at competitive or below-market rates, to build capacity in Hawaii’s nonprofit community, promote social entrepreneurship, and enable work and activities that make Hawai`i a better place.
I also met Lisa Maruyama, the new President/CEO of the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations (HANO). Lisa is a very impressive woman of color leading a statewide and sector-wide association of 280 charitable organizations in Hawaii. HANO unites and strengthens the nonprofit sector as a collective force to improve the quality of life in Hawai‘i . She had been on the job only a week and already hitting the ground running by meeting with the local Chamber of Commerce to speak to them about the nonprofit sector!
