Shelly Kessler
Founder and Principal
For over twenty-five years, Shelly has been both a practitioner and advisor to nonprofit and philanthropic organizations nationally, as well as nongovernmental organizations globally. She has deep experience in strategy and business planning, organizational and leadership development; and program planning and assessment, as well as being a trained facilitator.
From 2000-2013, Shelly was a Partner with TCC Group a national management consulting firm with offices in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco. She headed the nonprofit strategy practice as
well as being the Chief Financial Officer for the firm. While at TCC, she led numerous organizational assessment and strategic planning assignments for a broad spectrum of nonprofit organizations, philanthropies and corporate giving programs.
Prior to joining TCC Group, Shelly spent six years as Deputy Executive Director of the International
Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN, Inc.), an international nonprofit organization working with
medical schools in 24 countries to establish centers of research excellence. She came to INCLEN
after eleven years in international development, primarily with the international relief and development organization, CARE.
Shelly has written a number of articles on strategic planning over the years including “The Death of Planning” for the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal; “Funding for Impact: How to Design Strategic Grantmaking Programs,” and with Jared Raynor “When Things Fall Apart: Building Organizational Strength of Humanitarian Organizations” for TCC Group. She has presented numerous workshops
on strategic and business planning for mission focused organizations nationally including podcasts on Adaptive Leadership for Nonprofits and Transformational Strategic Planning. She was the primary researcher for Private Foreign Aid: U.S. Philanthropy for Relief and Development, by Landrum Bolling (West View Press, 1982) and authored Third World Women in Agriculture: An Annotated Bibliography (The National Council for Research on Women, 1985).
Shelly received her Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Brown University.
Currently, Shelly is a member of the boards of Public Citizens for Children and Youth based in Philadelphia and Ultimate Block Party, a national exploration of how children learn and grow.