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Helping Organizations Grow, Change, Succeed

Carol Coren

Carol Coren has been actively engaged in the nonprofit sector as an agency founder, director or consultant for the past thirty years. After working as a television and news film editor for Philadelphia area broadcast stations, she joined the staff of the Pennsylvania Commission for Women in 1976 and while there produced innovative multi-media programs to advance equal employment and educational opportunities for women.  She left that post to become the first Executive Director of a tri-state Women's Way campaign and played a key role in introducing United Way Donor Option programs through her work there. Since then, she has held executive positions at numerous organizations.

Ms. Coren brings significant experience in strategic planning and program development, economic and community development, micro-credit, rural and women’s services, public affairs, media relations, nonprofit/NGO management, Internet communications, distance learning, and organization development to her work with clients.  Ms. Coren has helped a broad array of individuals, agencies, institutions and organizations in their efforts to become self sufficient and to build up services and client bases. Among her most distinguished accomplishments are securing US Treasury Community Development Financial Institution Certification for two nonprofit micro-enterprise lenders, one in Appalachian Pennsylvania and the other in the Pacific Northwest . She has raised venture capital for emerging technologies and worked with real estate developers, community action agencies, cultural institutions, schools, and nonprofit groups focusing on the arts, culture, education, environment, sustainable agriculture, rural and urban development initiatives and tourism.

In recent years, she has applied her media background to Internet based distance learning and e-commerce initiatives and created websites for a statewide arts campaign, for microenterprise entrepreneurs, for low income savers participating in Individual Asset Development (IDA) programs and for food security initiatives. She has been recognized for the scope of her work and knowledge by the US Department of Commerce which has used her to review Technology Opportunity Program Grants and by the USDA which enlisted her to serve as an advisor to two Secretaries of Agriculture as a member of an E-government Advisory Board.

Carol Coren was an early advisor for our organizational development efforts and helped us envision how community groups and committed individuals can revitalize the food system of Northern Oregon's coastal counties.   She understood the important roles that reconnecting with our historical and cultural food traditions would have on regional community development efforts and appreciated the links between health, wellness, self sufficiency and food security.  Her workshop on cooperative development gave our stakeholders new perspectives and information to make informed business decisions. She consulted with Food Roots on entrepreneurship, innovative business models, and organizational assessment, assisting our efforts to create organizational capacity in one of America's most economically depressed and challenged regions. 

- Shelly Bowe, Food Roots, Tillamook County, Oregon