Lisa Mount & Cooperating Consultants
Lisa Mount refuses to specialize. As the Director of Artistic Logistics she works as a consultant with non profit arts organizations, and facilitates dynamic meetings for groups large and small. As an independent artist she produces, directs, and appears in contemporary performance work, including the acclaimed community story plays, Headwaters :: Stories From A Goodly Portion Of Beautiful Northeast Georgia, Headwaters: Birth, Death and Places In-Between, and Headwaters: Didja Hear? at the Sautee Nacoochee Center from 2007 – 2013.She toured with the DeLuxe Vaudeville Orchestra as rhythm banjo player from 1994 to 2006. Before embarking on her consulting career in 1997, Lisa served as the Managing Director of 7 Stages theater in Atlanta. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre, with honors, from Lewis and Clark College. She has served as the Board Chair for Alternate ROOTS, the Atlanta Theatre Coalition, and Georgia Shares, a workplace giving campaign. Lisa received the 1996 “Abby” Award from the Atlanta Arts and Business Council for Outstanding Arts Professional, and was named one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend Magazine in 2008. In 2009, she was given the first Paula Vaughn Community Arts Lifetime Achievement Award by the Georgia Assembly of Community Arts Agencies. She currently serves on the boards of Alternate ROOTS and the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Photo courtesy of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts / Triangle Blvd
Keryl McCord is founder and CEO of EQ, The Equity Quotient, a national training and organizational development firm dedicated to supporting arts and culture non profits interested in becoming more just and equitable community partners, with equity, diversity, and inclusion as outcomes of their work. Keryl is a veteran arts manager and administrator with more than thirty years of experience in many facets of the arts. Her background includes serving as managing director of two theater companies, Oakland Ensemble Theater Company, a five-hundred seat AEA theater in downtown Oakland, CA, and Crossroads Theater Company, New Brunswick, NJ, the only black-run LORT theater at the time, and the first such company to receive the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater. Ms. McCord served as the executive director of the League of Chicago Theaters/ League of Chicago Theaters Foundation in 1990. She left Chicago in 1991 to take a post at the National Endowment for the Arts as Assistant Director of Theater Programs, and was appointed Director of Theater Programs in 1993. She served on the executive committee of the National Black Theater Summit on Golden Pond in 1998, convened by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, August Wilson. Subsequently she was tapped to be a founding board member and Senior Vice President of the African Grove Institute for the Arts (AGIA), Newark, NJ, of which Mr. Wilson served as chairman. She remained with AGIA until Mr. Wilson’s passing. Beginning 2009 she was Managing Director for Alternate ROOTS, a nationally recognized, regionally-focused network and service organization for activist artists in the South. Ms. McCord was responsible for day-to-day management, including fundraising and development, and helped steward the organization through a period of unprecedented growth. Over the course of her tenure the organization’s budget grew from $250,000 per year to $1.3 million, and upon her retirement in 2016 she had raised more than $5 million dollars. Ms. McCord has consulted for many nonprofit arts organizations in the areas of institutional development, strategic fundraising, community and cultural organizing, and provides small and large group facilitation. Clients include the Wisconsin Arts Board, Madison, WI; Arts Midwest, Minneapolis, MN; National Performance Network, New Orleans, LA; The Center for Performance and Civic Practice, Phoenix, AZ; Junebug Productions, New Orleans, LA; Spirithouse, Durham, NC; Su Teatro, Denver, CO; Myrna Loy Center for the Arts, Helena, MT; Dance/USA, Washington, DC; and the New Brunswick Jazz Project, New Brunswick, NJ.
Rebecca Mwase (they/she) is a Zimbabwean-American theater and performance artist, creative consultant, facilitator, and cultural organizer working at the intersection of art and social justice. They craft performance, processes, workshops and curriculum that investigate how we create home, a profound sense of belonging: in our bodies, with each other and in our communities large and small. Her work creates spaces to reckon with and release the impacts of oppression while deepening a sense of freedom, connection and belonging. They have supported the change work of Sierra Club and the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts among many others. Rebecca is a board member of the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Ann-Laura Parks, CFRE, has more than 20 years experience in helping nonprofit organizations with fundraising, communications, research and evaluation. She graduated cum laude with a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and then worked in graphic design and communications before moving into fundraising through positions at arts and culture and human service organizations. Her wide-ranging skills have led to work on projects for a variety of organizations in education, youth development, science and technology, arts and culture, social services, community development, and more. A member of the Association for Fundraising Professionals, Ann-Laura has been a certified fundraising executive through CFRE International since 2006.
Kayla Kim Votapek (She/Her/Hers) is a Creative Producer and Consultant who specializes in anti-racism work through the lens of intersectionality. She is currently using the power of storytelling to provoke, challenge, and educate individuals on mixed race/identity and mixed families (i.e.: adoption, second generation, interracial relationships etc.) Kayla received her bachelor’s degree in Theater Arts, Psychology, and Education as a Social Science from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. She obtained her master’s degree in Creative Producing at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, UK. Kayla is currently the Zoom Magician and Administration Assistant for Equity Quotient. Previously, she was the Associate Producer at The Tony Award winning® Crossroads Theatre Company which has allowed her to use her production skills to produce an abundant number of high-quality events. As a producer and arts administrator, she has had the pleasure of working with numerous award-winning organizations and companies such as The Broadway League, The American Theatre Wing, Rutgers University, Theatre Communication Group, TADA! Youth Theatre, Crossroads Theatre Company, New Jersey Theatre Alliance, Art Pride and Improbable.
