Dear CEF Community, Partners, and Friends:
On behalf of CEF’s Board of Trustees, it is my honor and delight to share that Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Miller will assume the role as Foundation Executive Director on October 1, 2014.
With over 10 years of senior-level, nonprofit management and collegiate teaching experience, Beth brings the right combination of fundraising and relationship-building expertise CEF needs. She has a wealth of fundraising experience, and her previous efforts have brought in millions of dollars, with many six-figure major gifts, sponsorships, and grants.
Beth has a successful track record of capacity building at an array of educational and cultural nonprofit institutions. She currently lives in Boston and has worked primarily in the Northeast, including the Third Sector New England (TSNE), The Mark Twain House & Museum, and Trinity College. Click for more.
Key recruitment criteria included strengths in non-profit leadership, fundraising, a passion for creativity, and fit with our community and culture. Over 170 quality applications were reviewed in an extensive search process conducted by the Board of Trustees. Beth was selected because she has both the skills to grow our organization and the desire to connect with CPSI and CEF values, heart, and community.
We also want to thank all of you for your time, talent, and treasure over the past three years, as we have worked without an Executive Director. It has only been possible because of our amazing part-time CEF and CPSI staff, a dedicated Board of Trustees, and YOU. In this important 60th anniversary year, we are now equipped to move forward. The next generation of creative thinkers and innovators will clearly be the benefactors of this momentum.
In the traditional, warm CEF/CPSI spirit, please welcome Beth and offer her virtual hugs and your support as we work together to build a world where creative thinking and problem solving become the norm. With sincere appreciation for our history and positive expectations for our future,
Kitty Heusner,
Chair CEF Board of Trustees
A Personal Note from Beth:
“I am thrilled at this opportunity to serve the Creative Education Foundation and its international community as the organization embarks upon this next exciting phase of its development.
As the first woman in my family to earn both undergraduate and graduate degrees, my educational and professional paths were fraught with false starts and an array of painful awakenings. Hard work and tenacity got me far, but another barrier emerged during my work as a professional – relentless execution.
Students, teachers, non- and for-profit professionals must frantically execute to achieve test scores, maintain services, and meet shareholders’ expectations. But what if there was more time to think creatively, a pause from the grind that allowed for stakeholders to leverage their intellectual capital and reconnect to values and vision? What problems might we solve? What voices might we truly hear for the first time? How many more people would we retain and nurture into the fullest articulation of their ability?
I am humbled and energized to be a part of the team at the Creative Education Foundation to find ways to unleash this stymied potential to create catalytic change in partnership with all of you.
I look forward to connecting and collaborating with the CEF/CPSI community to mobilize the power of creativity to make our organizations and schools more reflective of our talents, more innovative in our world, and more deeply satisfying for our lives."
Beth Miller
Starting Oct 1: bmiller@creativeeducationfoundation.org
