Julie Simpson

Bringing diverse stakeholders together to foster meaningful change

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”—Aristotle

Julie is a transformational leader and change agent distinguished in her ability to connect complex ideas that have seemingly unrelated parts and order them in ways that help a wide range of stakeholders with diverse goals get on the same page.

Clients value her ability to prioritize, clarify, and narrow details into clear focus, and ensure everyone is rowing in the same direction. Her contagious enthusiasm and passionate belief in collaboration inspires people to come to the table, engage in the conversation, and make meaningful contributions.

Julie’s field-tested expertise in such areas as network and coalition strengthening, community partnership-building, education and cultural policy, and health equity has helped numerous organizations develop and implement strategic plans, design new business models, and evaluate programs.

An active author and speaker on strategy and capacity building in the social sector, she has been published in scholarly journals and presented at many national and international conferences.

At TCC Group:

• Catalyst Miami: Julie infused a deliberate, strategically-directed focus into the organization, conducting a process to help identify the organization’s differentiators and areas where it could uniquely contribute to Miami-Dade County. Engaged at a time when the staff and leadership were stretched thin and siloed organizationally, Julie immersed herself with board members, staff, partners, funders, government, and recipient organizations to build trust and inspire elevated thinking for the future. Her ability to align stakeholders toward a singular, unified goal enabled big picture planning that illuminated opportunities for exceptional and successful community building and sector impact, and enabled staff to be more valuable contributors to the organization.
• Educational Alliance: Julie’s skills of diplomacy and active listening buoyed a drastic shift in culture for an organization that was overly dependent on government contracts and lacked a diversity in its revenue streams. Through an inclusive strategic planning process, Julie deftly facilitated a process to bring the Board and senior staff together to achieve greater appreciation for the communities they served, creating a safe space for difficult conversations, incorporating community voices into the planning process, clarifying future board profile priorities, and fostering agreement on goals focused on mutually beneficial outcomes with the agency’s constituencies.
• Girls Inc: Known to make change happen in a sensitive and powerful way, Julie orchestrated a strategic planning process that unified the organization’s 84 affiliates toward an agreed-upon high standard of quality and ownership surrounding a collective and record-breaking goal. Enabling individual responsibility and pride in the planning process empowered affiliate programming and efforts that enabled Girls Inc. to raise the majority of its $20 million capital growth target for the plan period.

Before TCC Group:

• Cricket Island Foundation: No stranger to entrepreneurial ventures, Julie was the founding director of the Cricket Island Foundation in New York City. Her clarity and vision helped successfully bridge three generations of Board members to align their interests, determine their areas of focus and increase their engagement in efforts to support, and develop youth-led social change organizations. Julie organized a national capacity-building effort to enable community-based nonprofits to successfully articulate and measure their impact. She also served in a national leadership capacity with the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing.
• Columbia College Center for Community Arts Partnerships: Julie founded, developed, and completely funded the Center—taking it from an initial concept to a $6 million-per-year nonprofit self-sustaining entity. Connecting the mission of this urban arts and media college to construct a reciprocal learning environment with members and institutions in communities throughout the city of Chicago, Julie’s vision and determination established a transformational program that united artists, educators, students, corporations, schools, and community-based organizations to form meaningful, sustainable partnerships through the arts.

Education:

• Executive Education Certification
  • Northwestern Kellogg School of Management
  • Stanford Graduate School of Business
  • Harvard Business School
• New York University
  • MA, Educational Policy and Curriculum Development
  • MFA, Choreography and Performance
• Oberlin College
  • BA, Art History
  • BA, Dance