(August 18, 2014 |New Orleans, LA) – The Greater New Orleans Foundation, in partnership with the Kresge Foundation and Chevron, is pleased to announce the panel of judges for Pitch It! The Innovation Challenge 2014. The innovation initiative supports breakthrough ideas in the nonprofit field with awards totaling $37,500. Three finalists will present their ideas in a public pitch to the panel of judges on Friday, October 17th at 9:00 am at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The judges who will select first, second, and third prize winners are:
- Guillermina Hernandez-Gallegos, Program Director for Human Services at the Kresge Foundation, a $3.2 billion private foundation. The Kresge Foundation awards $150 million annually to nonprofit organizations working to promote human progress by helping to improve the lives of poor and low income children and adults. As leader of the human services team, Ms. Guillermina shares innovative ideas and practices with the hundreds of human-service organizations she partners with across the country. Prior to joining the Kresge Foundation in 2011, she worked for two other foundations, the Fetzer Institute and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
- Sakari Morrison, Manager of Policy, Government and Public Affairs at Chevron. She has worked in a variety of roles at Chevron since 2001, including Manager of Corporate Responsibility for Australia. Ms. Morrison holds a Masters of International and Public Affairs from Johns Hopkins, and previously served as a Woodrow Wilson Summer Fellow for US Foreign Policy at Georgetown University.
- Earl Robinson, President of PowerMoves.NOLA, a national initiative focused on providing access to capital, connections and guidance to increase the number of venture-backed minority entrepreneurs. Mr. Robinson is an advisory board member of and partner of RLMcCall Capital, and he is a founding board member of Cardinal Points Holdings, an equity sponsor of ClearCompass Digital Group, a digital media company. Prior to co-founding Cardinal Points, Mr. Robinson launched Column Point Capital, an investment platform concentrating on the transportation, industrial services and healthcare IT sectors.
- Matt Wisdom, co-founder and CEO of TurboSquid, the world’s leading seller of 3D models used to create imagery in feature films, computer games, news, advertising, engineering, and other industries. With a catalog of over 250,000 unique 3D models, TurboSquid engages with 2.5 million artists and customers from around the world. He has been honored with several awards including being named “Technology Leader of the Year” for the State of Louisiana Governor’s Technology Awards. Mr. Wisdom serves on the boards and executive committees of GNO, Inc. and The Idea Village.
Jeanne Bell, CEO of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, will address the audience, and Mark Romig will serve as the MC of Pitch It! The Innovation Challenge.
For more information on Pitch It! The Innovation Challenge, please visit our website at http://www.gnof.org/program/pitch-it-the-innovation-challenge/.