Planning for Success in a Post-Pandemic World

Businesses are reopening, people are traveling, and life appears to be on a path to normal…Where do nonprofits fall on the Covid continuum?
We’ll check in with a panel of nonprofit experts for a pandemic update and learn how their respective worlds have evolved since Covid-19 upended life as we know it. From budget shortfalls, furloughs, and layoffs to cancelled galas and fundraisers – how did they survive the early days of the pandemic, how did they adapt to the ongoing restrictions, and what are they doing now to re-engage donors and volunteers?
While there were some wildly creative responses and unique re-imaginings of nonprofit events and fundraising during the pandemic, some nonprofits did not survive. Others face long term scars from lost revenue and donor awareness. Did the pandemic force some underlying issues to intensify and did it become an opportunity for change? Were any changes made in response to the pandemic that will remain in place?
Susan Bushnell will share how a national nonprofit reacted to Covid. Jamie Case will discuss the challenges faced by a smaller, local nonprofit. Paul Pagano will represent a local fine arts organization and share their experiences.

Panelists

Katie McGovern
President/CEO
The ALS Association St. Louis Regional Chapter

Katie provides leadership for the Chapter and is responsible for the administration and operations of the Chapter’s programs and services, and for creating a philanthropic culture within board and staff. She is responsible for the development of strategic plans; capacity building; evaluation of programs, services and staff for attainment of outcomes and goals; marketing and cultivating the business; and ensuring financial growth and success for the Chapter.
She holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in organizational communication from Saint Louis University and has extensive experience in non-profit business management, marketing and communications, volunteer management and fund development.
Katie joined the St. Louis Regional Chapter in 2012 as Development Director. During her tenure, Chapter revenue increased 92 percent, including a 180 percent increase in corporate giving. She played a key role in these efforts, cultivating strong relationships with the Chapter’s corporate supporters and individual donors, overseeing foundation and grant portfolios, and managing board giving efforts. McGovern has held positions on a variety of local and national boards and committees.
She is married with three children, one who is deaf, and is a well-known community advocate for people with disabilities.

Jamie Case
Project Manager Maddie’s® Human Animal Support Services
American Pets Alive

Jamie Case is the former Executive Director of Gateway Pet Guardians (GPG). GPG’s work is concentrated in the community of East St. Louis, Illinois, where almost half of the residents live at, or below, the poverty line. Since becoming the Executive Director in 2010, the organization has grown exponentially. Jamie led a strong team of volunteers and staff to create community change through boots-on-the-ground outreach efforts.
The East St. Louis area is a resource desert with more than 64,000 residents. In 2012, Jamie and her team began transferring animals from the euthanasia list at the county’s municipal shelter. Twenty-five percent of intake at the county facility came from the GPG service area due to lack of resources. To increase life saving efforts, she pushed for the integration of Illinois organizations into the regional St. Louis Petlover Coalition, bridging the gap between Illinois and Missouri welfare initiatives. Jamie currently serves as a member of the coalition’s leading Task Force. In 2014, she worked with East St. Louis city officials to eliminate breed-specific verbiage and update outdated inhumane verbiage in the city ordinance. She also led the charge to put pressure on county officials to improve conditions and procedures at the municipal shelter. In 2016, Jamie and other citizens pushed to pass the county’s 2021 no-kill resolution. And in 2018, the St. Clair County Animal Welfare Coalition was formed to bring together all welfare groups working toward the 2021 goal. This was the first county-wide coalition in the state of Illinois.
To solve the problem of lack of essential services and resources, GPG purchased a former elementary school in March 2019 which has been renovated into the St. Louis metro region’s largest pet resource center. This facility, which includes the city’s first veterinary clinic, opened in the summer of 2020 amid the pandemic that left many people needing low cost and subsidized services.

Paul Pagano
Executive Director
Gateway Center for Performing Arts

Paul Pagano (he/him) is a co-founder and Executive Director of Gateway Center for Performing Arts (GCPA) in Webster Groves. As an actor (Actors’ Equity Association), some of Paul’s credits include the Guthrie Theatre, The Children’s Theatre Company, Chanhassen Dinner Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, The MUNY, and STAGES St. Louis. As a fight director, his credits include The MUNY, Missouri All-State Theatre, Mustard Seed Theatre, Washington University Performing Arts Department, and GCPA. In addition to directing more than 20 productions at GCPA, Paul has also directed at Fontbonne University and St. Louis University High School. His students have gone on to study performing arts at NYU, Boston Conservatory, Indiana University, Elon University, Baldwin Wallace, Marymount Manhattan College, Roosevelt University Chicago, AMDA, University of Utah, Columbia College Chicago, University of Mississippi, and Missouri State.

Moderator

April Foster
Director of Programs
Center for Women in Transition

April graduated from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in 1999 with a BS in social work and received her MSW with a focus on gender specific programming in the justice system in 2009.  April worked in juvenile justice for 10 years before moving into behavioral research.   She then spent 10 years as a research coordinator within Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry with studies focusing on trauma and PTSD, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.  Throughout her time in research, she remained involved with reentry work through volunteer, consultant, and Board activities with local reentry organizations.  In 2019 she returned to her passion of working with justice involved populations on a full-time basis as the Director of Programs at the Center for Women in Transition.