2026 Nonprofit Culture Fest Planning & Advisory Committee
Our sincere gratitude to the members of the inaugural Culture Fest Planning Committee for their time and efforts to make the event a success!
KATE VIANA
Nonprofit Culture Fest Creator
Kate Viana is a NANOE-certified nonprofit consultant and the creator of Nonprofit Culture Fest, with nearly 15 years of hands-on experience working alongside mission-driven organizations as a strategist, designer, fundraiser, and culture advisor. Throughout her career, she has partnered closely with small and midsize nonprofits, witnessing how deeply organizational culture and communication shape not only outcomes, but the health and sustainability of the people doing the work. Her practice is rooted in a clear belief: strong missions falter not from lack of passion, but from broken systems, misaligned communication, and unresolved cultural harm.
As the founder of Viana Communications, Kate leads an ecosystem of mission-supporting initiatives including Nontoxic Nonprofits, Viana Social, Opscale Systems, and NonprofiText. Across these platforms, her work focuses on helping organizations heal internal dysfunction, clarify their voice, and build communication systems that are both ethical and effective. Known for her candid, people-centered approach, Kate specializes in identifying and repairing cultural toxicity that quietly undermines trust, growth, and impact. Her writing and consulting consistently challenge performative storytelling and burnout-driven norms, advocating instead for honest narratives, healthy boundaries, and operational clarity that allow nonprofits to fulfill their missions without sacrificing their people.
Nonprofit Culture Fest was created as an extension of this work: a space for nonprofit leaders to step back, name the cultural realities they are navigating, and explore what becomes possible when organizations commit to clarity, care, and collective responsibility.
Cassy Krueger
Advisory Committee Member
Cassy Krueger believes the organizations trying to change the world are often just as complex as the problems they’re trying to solve—and that leaning into that complexity is key to achieving our goals together.
Cassy has spent her career building the infrastructure that helps mission-driven nonprofits actually live their values. With a background in sustainable peacebuilding (essentially systems thinking meets conflict resolution) and nonprofit management, she designs organizational systems and programs that center equity, drive performance, and engage people in change — particularly in remote and hybrid contexts where intentional design matters most.
From designing and launching transformative people programs to coaching leaders through cultural change, Cassy connects the dots between strategy, operations, and the people doing the work. She’s held roles across communications, operations, programming, and organizational development at nonprofits working toward climate action, social justice, and systems change.
In addition, she’s also a proud Midwesterner, Philly transplant, and cat mom. When she’s not geeking out over all things organizational culture, she can often be found at a local coffee shop with a book, running along the Schuylkill River (surprising even herself), or serving on the board of her local library’s Friends group and Indigenous Peoples’ Day Philly.
Sarah Colomé
Advisory Committee Member
Building on nearly twenty years of experience in education, community-driven strategy, and advocacy – all centering the needs and experiences of marginalized populations – Sarah has bolstered mission-driven work across governmental offices, nonprofit and member-organizations, and campuses across the country. Her experience spans sectors, including roles as a national technical assistance provider, director of a university prevention and advocacy resource center, educator, and an organizational development consultant.
As a capacity builder, Sarah prioritizes cultivating value-driven leadership that centers the importance of collaboration as a means to liberation. Catalyzed by her commitment to advancing liberatory frameworks, she founded Collective Futures LLC to partner with clients in not only visualizing but actualizing intersectional equity through individual and organizational transformation.
Building on her experiences as a national trainer, and domestic violence and sexual assault survivor advocate, Sarah currently serves as Board Treasurer for End Rape on Campus, and previously served as a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education.
Her writing has been featured in Ms. Magazine, as well as various academic journals, and in 2015 she was selected as an International Delegate to the Centre Hubertine Auclert in Paris.
Shay Upadhyay
Advisory Committee Member
Shay Upadhyay is a creative thinker, problem-solver, and collaborative partner. She brings a breadth of nonprofit consulting experience, with a particular interest in university fundraising and capital campaigns. Shay combines strong project management skills with a rigorous, analytical approach, helping clients identify solutions grounded in evidence and experience. She enjoys staying current on trends in the nonprofit sector and integrating leading practices, tools, and insights to support and strengthen her clients’ work.
Shay graduated from Indiana University-Bloomington with a BSPA in Nonprofit Management and Leadership, a minor in Social Welfare Advocacy and a certificate in Political and Civic Engagement. She is currently pursuing her M.S. in Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Pennsylvania with a Certificate in Applied Data Ethics, Law, and the Social Good.
Loretta Turner
Advisory Committee Member
Loretta is an exceptional social entrepreneur, leadership coach, and advocate for talent justice and workplace wellbeing. As the Founder of Do Good Leadership Collective, Loretta’s work focuses on caring for the social impact sector through workforce wellbeing strategy. She believes that prioritizing the healing, endurance, and wellbeing of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders is key to organizational effectiveness and resilience. Loretta brings nearly 15 years of experience to her work as strategist, coach, wellness practitioner–and importantly–as a former nonprofit leader who experienced burnout firsthand.
Lisa Friscia
Advisory Committee Member
Lisa Friscia is a leadership strategist and fractional Chief People Officer who helps mission-driven organizations build the people infrastructure required to scale without burning out their teams. With a background as a founding school leader and CPO across multi-site organizations, she specializes in turning values into operating systems—clarifying roles, decision rights, and performance so leaders can move faster with less friction. Her work sits at the intersection of culture, strategy, and execution.
Sharlene Frank
Advisory Committee Member
Sharlene C. Frank is a global people and operations leader supporting mission-driven nonprofits and international NGOs. With 20+ years leading global, lean, distributed teams, she builds scalable people systems across hiring, performance, rewards, and HR operations. Formerly Chief People and Culture Officer at Rethink Food, she strengthened performance and engagement and led an HR tech transformation. She is a Hudson Certified Coach and holds the SHRM-SCP, SPHR, and GPHR credentials.
Sharlene is completing a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change Management at Antioch University (Expected July 2026) and holds an Executive MPA (NYU), MBA (Baruch/CUNY), and BS in Human Resource Management (CUNY).
Crystal Kadakia
Advisory Committee Member
Crystal Kadakia is an organizational capacity consultant with over 15 years of experience helping people work better together across sectors. Her work focuses on inclusion, engagement, and power dynamics— strengthening the structures and cultures that allow organizations to thrive.
In 2020, she led the Sierra Club’s widest stakeholder engagement process to date as part of a structural assessment, culminating in ten unanimously approved board resolutions.
She’s the author of four books, an international keynote speaker, and a two-time TEDx presenter. With a background in chemical engineering and a master’s in organization development, she brings both analytical rigor and a deep understanding of human systems to her work.
Born and raised in Austin, Texas, she’s the daughter of Indian immigrants from Mumbai, with family roots in the village of Balasinor in Gujarat. She now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Jeremy, their son Niam, and baby daughter Anika.
madison shaw
Advisory Committee Member
Madison Shaw is a strategist and operations consultant with a deep foundation in social impact. She holds a Master’s in Social Work with a concentration in policy, planning, and administration – training that sharpened her expertise in systems thinking, organizational development, and community-centered leadership.
Madison has spent years in the nonprofit sector, serving on task forces and response teams dedicated to addressing both immediate and long-term community needs. Following her most recent role in higher education, she transitioned into entrepreneurship, founding a consulting firm that equips female business owners with operational clarity, strategic direction, and sustainable growth.