About the Program
Sustaining Leaders
Leading a domestic or sexual violence organization can be complex, demanding work. Executive Directors are asked to balance vision, operations, fundraising, supervision, and community relationships—all while navigating limited resources and the realities of trauma-informed work.
The Sustaining Leaders Program connects leaders in the field with experienced consultants and trusted peers who understand these challenges firsthand. Through tailored technical assistance, strategic guidance, and leadership support, this program helps leaders strengthen their organizations, sustain themselves, and deepen their impact.
Leaders sustaining leaders
Who is this program for?
The Sustaining Leaders Program is designed for Executive Directors of organizations working to prevent and respond to domestic and sexual violence.
Whether you are new to your role or a seasoned leader navigating new challenges, this program offers field-informed support from current and former leaders who understand the realities of this work.
Why participate?
What you’ll gain
Through the Sustaining Leaders Program, you’ll gain access to experienced leaders and consultants who understand the unique demands of leading domestic and sexual violence organizations.
Participants can expect:
- Tailored technical assistance aligned with your organization’s current priorities
- Practical guidance on nonprofit operations, strategic planning, fundraising, supervision, and board development
- Support navigating complex leadership challenges, including staff retention, coalition dynamics, and sustainability
- Access to professional coaching to strengthen your leadership capacity
- Opportunities to build relationships with peers facing similar responsibilities
This program is designed to strengthen both you and your organization—helping sustain leadership, reduce burnout, and deepen impact across the movement.
Join us
How to participate
Interested in learning how the Sustaining Leaders Program can support you and your organization?
Reach out to Karen Tronsgard-Scott, Co-Executive Director of the Vermont Network, at karents@vtnetwork.org to start a conversation about your leadership and organizational needs.
Leaders supporting leaders
Meet the experienced leaders offering consultation and support
Laura Berry
Executive Director
Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence
(She/Her)
Laura Berry has dedicated over 30 years to the fight against gender-based violence in Indiana. Beginning her career as an advocate supporting survivors in community-based programs, Laura’s passion and commitment quickly propelled her to the forefront of the movement. Today, she serves as the Executive Director of the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV), where her leadership has been instrumental in shaping the organization’s mission and impact.
Laura’s leadership style is defined by her core values of integrity, gratitude, and openness. She leads a team of twenty with a focus on integrating an equity framework into all areas of operation and programming. Her approach ensures that the voices of survivors are not only heard but are central to the development and implementation of services.
Recognized as an expert in domestic violence and non-profit leadership, Laura’s areas of expertise include financial and grant management, fund development, board development, systems change advocacy, public policy, and strategic planning. She is particularly skilled in engaging and listening to survivors, ensuring that their needs and experiences guide the coalition’s work. Laura’s dedication to mentorship has also helped cultivate the next generation of advocates and leaders in the field.
Cynthia Cabot
Executive Director
Guam Coalition Against Sexual Assault & Family Violence
(She/Her)
Jan Christiansen
Executive Director
Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence
(She/Her)
Jan Christiansen is the Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (GCADV) and has been with the organization since 2009. She has worked in the domestic violence movement for more than twenty-five years. Previous to coming to GCADV, Jan worked as a direct service advocate and as an executive director in both Florida and Vermont.
As a leader, Jan leads with openness and relies on her compassion, her ability to see people in their wholeness, and genuine care for the well-being of her colleagues and all those around her. As a survivor, she has poured her life into this work, seeking to end violence for all.
Jan’s expertise lies in building unique partnerships, diverse teams, and effective boards to lean into supporting organizations to become a better version of themselves. This often means leaning into what might seem controversial, provocative, and challenging.
Throughout her time at GCADV, Jan and her team have made changes throughout the organization. She addressed racism within the organization head-on and has built a diverse team leaders, taken on a new organizational model that takes on the standard the hierarchical model, and undertaken the implementation of innovative projects.
M.L. Daniel
Founder and Consultant
Spiritual Academy
(She/Her)
Doris Dupuy
Co-Director
Resonance Network
(She/Her)
Since 2018, Doris has served as the lead on all things finance, administration, human resources, and management at Resonance Network. More recently, as Co-Director, she helps to lead a team that aims to cultivate resilience through relationship-centered approaches.
Her past work includes leading and managing programs that provide critical resources to historically marginalized children and families. She advocated for access to quality education, mental health support, and stable housing, both in her compensated work and in her volunteer, board and in-kind work.
Furthermore, Doris’s certification as a life, leadership, and executive coach helps her to support her staff at Resonance as well as other programs – all with the goal towards thriving.
Three values:
- Trust
- Equity
- Sharing grace
Areas of expertise:
- Life, leadership and executive coaching
- Program development and project management
- Quality assurance and compliance
- Education and training
- Financial and administrative operations
Alexis Flanagan
Co-Director
Resonance Network
(She/Ella)
Alexis Flanagan, ACC is the CEO of ARVEL Group, ICF credentialed coach, and co-director of Resonance Network, a 3,000+ member network building a world rooted in mutual care. With 30 years of experience in organizational leadership and transformative learning, she combines practical expertise with spiritual wisdom to partner with changemakers in aligning their work with deep purpose.
Three values:
- Multiple ways of knowing
- Collective liberation
- Transformative healing
Areas of expertise:
- Executive and purpose coaching
- Feminist co-leadership
- Collaborative governance
- Story-based transformative learning design
- Cross-cultural facilitation and movement building
Raven E. Freeborn
Executive Director
Avow
(They/Themme)
Raven E. Freeborn is a queer, savvy southern dissenter living, loving, and organizing in Texas. They are guided by Black feminist wisdom, healing justice, and a spirit of playfulness. Raven specializes in political and movement strategy, coalition building, facilitation, and coaching executive and senior leaders. Raven leads as Executive Director of Avow, a multi-entity organization building power to unapologetically advance abortion rights and access with and for Texans.
Additionally, Raven is the founder of Legacy Healing & Therapy Services, where they support communities in addressing persistent patterns of oppression through a healing justice approach. Ultimately, their work aims to revitalize public health infrastructures to improve conditions for Black and brown queer and trans folks. With a background in social work, birth work, and mental health, Raven bridges human and political development to catalyze systems transformation. Inspired by poetry and grounded in nature, Raven’s leadership is a joyful, restorative practice rooted in community and collective
Diana González
Amplify Director of Training
Vermont Network
(She/Her)
Over the course of her 25-year career she has embraced multiple roles, including facilitator, coach, researcher, educator, organizer, and manager. She is the Training Director at Amplify, a leadership lab to uproot the causes of gender-based violence housed at the Vermont Network. As a highly skilled trainer and coach, she utilizes a dynamic participant-centered strategy to facilitate impactful learning and action on topics such as leadership development, organizational development, political organizing, strategic planning, train-the-trainer, conflict resolution, equity including racial, LGBTQ+, economic justice, and climate justice.
In every endeavor, her unwavering focus is to support leaders to achieve their goals across multiple contexts. She focuses on joyfully supporting discourse and dialogue within yourself, interpersonally, and systemically.
Three values:
- Dignity
- Connection
- Kindness
Areas of expertise:
- Executive coaching
- Values clarification
- Equitable management
- Theory of change
- Strategic planning
Lynne Lange
Executive Leadership Coach & Consultant
Mission Matters
(She/Her)
Lynne specializes in leadership coaching, facilitation, and consulting for nonprofit capacity building. Lynne’s passion is centered around sustaining and cultivating leaders who are the change-makers in our world. She has worked in the domestic/sexual violence field since 1994, first serving as the Executive Director of a local program and then as the Executive Director of the Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic.
Lynne is a Certified Professional Coach and is trained in facilitation and strategic planning. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Nebraska, and an Executive Scholar Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Chicago Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Three values:
- Optimism
- Intuition
- Creativity
Areas of expertise:
- Executive coaching
- Team development (collective leadership growth, culture creation, etc.)
- Self-care for sustainability and impact (Movement Building approach)
- Strategic planning as well as other types of facilitation
- Board of Directors training and capacity building
Dr. Wendy B. Mahoney
Principal Consultant
Devine Strategies Consulting
(She/Her)
Dr. Wendy Mahoney is a domestic violence and sexual assault survivor. She is an advocate who serves on the state and national levels to bring about change in the domestic violence field. Over the past 13 years, she has held leadership roles, including Interim President and CEO of the National Network to End Domestic Violence and Executive Director for the Mississippi Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She currently provides consulting services to domestic violence shelter programs and coalitions nationwide. She is a sought-after leader in the field. Dr. Mahoney’s published works include “Domestic Violence” in the Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy and Governance and “Enhancing domestic violence advocates’ Ability to Discuss HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP): Feasibility and Acceptability of an educational intervention,” Women’s Health.
Her work has included teen dating violence prevention projects (pilot project in a local school district with pre and post-curriculum development for teens); state and national legislative advocacy (change state divorce law to include spousal domestic abuse); coordinated community response coordination and facilitation (training and development in targeted rural counties in MS); engaging men projects (training men on bystander interventions); shelter program technical assistance; elder abuse training (trained home healthcare workers); teen dating violence training; coordination of medical protocol for healthcare professionals (collaboration with public and private hospitals to implement protocols); collaboration with disability agencies to provide training for advocates.
Dr. Mahoney has traveled extensively nationwide, providing training and keynote addresses. She has been the keynote for the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence statewide conferences. She received a Doctor of Theology from Grace Through Faith School of Ministry and completing a doctorate in Public Policy and Administration from Jackson State University.
Kelly Miller
Collective Acceleration
(She/Her)
Kelly Miller recently completed tenure with the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence as executive director and most recently in a shared collective stewardship model. Over the last fourteen years in leadership, Kelly has designed and integrated organizational programming, policies, and practices centered on our beingness. Our beingness matters. Her work in the anti-violence movement has been informed and enriched by many – beloved community, empowered survivors, and extraordinary colleagues. Kelly is now fully immersed in supporting the work of Collective Acceleration to evolve and become the humans these times and the universe requires of us.
Three values:
- Leaning into our collective humanity
- A deep knowing of our interdependence and mutual responsibility
- The momentum that comes with courage
Areas of expertise:
- Building and sustaining momentum in organizational transformation from board to staff to program members and community members.
- Challenges and opportunities in moving towards organizational wholeness
- Moving beyond a theory of change to long arc strategy
- Developing strategic programmatic approaches and campaigns that have impact
- Proactively preparing your organization for an IRS audit and other delightful experiences.
Debra J. Robbin
Founder
Debra J. Robbin Consulting and Coaching
(She/Her)
Debra held senior roles at Jane Doe Inc., (JDI), the MA Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence for nearly twenty-two years. She served as Executive Director for the last eleven of those years, leading a vibrant coalition of sixty nonprofits to address the intersections of gender-based violence and racial equity. Her breadth of nonprofit sector expertise lends to her current role in consulting and executive coaching, with a tailored focus on recruiting and supporting progressive leaders in their journeys and nurturing organizations committed to social justice.
She remains passionate about activism, change-making, building a world without violence, and the power of progressive collective action. When she isn’t making good trouble, Debra can be found in the garden, on the yoga mat, cooking, and listening to jazz with her longtime partner David and their two kitties, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.
Three values:
- Connection
- Equity
- Humility
Areas of expertise:
- Leadership/executive coaching focused on new, transitioning leaders
- Nonprofit executive searches for leadership roles
- Board development
- Technical assistance, including coalition building and operations/organizational development
Lyn Schollett
Executive Director
NHCADSV
(She/Her)
Lyn has spent nearly 3 decades in coalition work with an emphasis in public policy advocacy. As General Counsel to the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, she led the effort to draft and implement the first sexual assault protective order. Moving from a big state with a big budget to a small state with a tiny budget as the ED at NHCADSV, Lyn maximizes her skills in building relationships and collaborative problem-solving. She emphasizes the opportunity for staff to spread their wings and try new things.
Three values:
- Integrity
- Empathy
- Inclusion
Areas of expertise:
- Grant writing
- Public policy/legal analysis
- Amicus work
Nan Stoops
Strategic Advisor
WA State Coalition Against Domestic Violence
(Any/All)
Nan has worked in the anti-violence movement for more than 40 years. Currently, she is the Strategic Advisor at the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV), where she served as the Executive Director for 17 years. Nan was a founding member of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence in 2001, and has looked to the margins for our best solutions ever since. She is a warrior of leaders of warriors, and persists with a front-facing view of freedom. For balance, Nan relies on her family, friends, baseball, Netflix and good beer (usually in that order).
Three values:
- Freedom
- Honesty
- Humility
Areas of expertise:
- Coaching (baseball and executives)
- Practicing
- Stretching
- Navigating
- Trying
Vanessa Timmons
Executive Director
Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
(She/Her)
Karen Tronsgard-Scott
Co-Executive Director
Vermont Network
(She/They)
Karen has worked with non-profit organizations, leaders and staff members across the country and in eastern Europe. Her work focuses on creating visions, mission, values and strategies. Additionally, she has worked with organizations seeking to unite under a coalition umbrella focused on changing society and its response to violence. She has also coached and mentored leaders from across the country. Karen draws from her experience as a non-profit Executive Director, board member and interim Executive Director.
Three values:
- Love – leading with love allows her to see beyond superficial challenges and to work with people from a human-centered perspective.
- Excellence – excellence for Karen means doing my best every day.
- Integrity – Karen aspires to be trust-worthy, reliable, honest and kind in all that she does.
Areas of expertise:
- Development of vision, mission, values, purpose
- Strategic planning
- Executive coaching
- Executive recruitment, hiring, retention
- Board development and crisis management