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Meet Our Staff and Consultants
Rachel McPherson, Founder and Executive Director
718-788-2988
Rachel, a native Mississippian, brings to The Good Dog Foundation her experience
as an entrepreneur and community activist. Prior to creating The Good Dog Foundation,
she was a producer for film and television. Her company, Southern Voices, produced
dramatic adaptations of southern literature, including “The Wide Net,” an adaptation
of a Eudora Welty short story, in 1985. In 1984, her film “Signals through
the Flames,” a
feature-length documentary on the history of Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s
Living Theatre Company, received an Academy Award nomination for documentary
film of the year. It was featured in film festivals, was broadcast on Canadian
and European television, and enjoyed theatrical release in the United States
and in Europe.
Rachel is active in numerous professional and cultural associations, serving as a leader in fundraising, development, event planning, and production efforts. She is an active board and development committee member for the Prospect Park Alliance. She also serves on the advisory board of the Earth Fire Institute. Having been inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Mississippi, Rachel is the past chair of the Ole Miss Women’s Council. She is a founder and coordinator of the Way Up North in Mississippi Picnic, held annually in New York’s Central Park. Rachel previously served her community by being a member of the board of New York Methodist Hospital, Project Reach Youth, and the Berkeley Carroll School, where she now serves as a life trustee.
Originally having set out to produce a documentary on therapy dog services,
Rachel fell in love with the work, stopped making the film, and created The
Good Dog Foundation. Under her leadership, The Good Dog Foundation helped change
New York State law to allow therapy dogs into health care facilities. Good
Dog now makes more than 77,000 visits to people in health care, social service,
and community organizations and schools in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut
each year. Good Dog has won awards from the ASPCA and the Red Cross for therapy
dog services given to families of victims, rescue workers, and others after
the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001. After 9/11, Good Dog
created a disaster response course for its volunteers, and it was deployed
by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health to assist families in need in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Good Dog has been honored several times
on the floor of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Rachel was named New
Yorker of the Week by New York 1 News in May 2006 for creating and running
The Good Dog Foundation.
Rachel lives with her husband, two children, two dogs, including Fidel, a Good Dog, and a rabbit, in New York City.
Michelle Fox, Executive Assistant to the Founder/Executive Director
718-788-2988
CONSULTANTS
Kimberly Hawkins, Senior Fundraising and Board-Building Consultant
Kimberly Hawkins is a partner in the New York consulting firm of Raybin Associates, Inc. She brings to the firm’s clients an extensive background in fundraising, having done every job in the development office from mail list maintenance to hospital foundation president to soliciting six- and seven-figure gifts. She joined Raybin Associates in 1987 after spending 15 years as chief development officer at such institutions as St. Joseph Medical Center, Greenwich Country Day School (both in Connecticut), the Japan Society in New York, and Anatolia College (an American School in Greece). She also served as director of alumnae relations at Manhattanville College, of which she is an alumna.
Long committed to service to the profession, Kim was a founder and president of the Fairfield County chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and served on AFP’s National Foundation Board. She currently co-chairs the American Association of Fundraising Counsel’s Summer Institute for Consulting Professionals. She is the author of a chapter on “Strategic Planning for Fund Raising” in the Wiley & Sons textbook, The
Non-Profit Handbook: Fund Raising.
Kim is bi-coastal, spending part of every week in New York and part at her home in Cleveland (the North Coast), where she tends to a large garden.
Leslye Lynford, Director of Development
Leslye Lynford began her career in fundraising 27 years ago in the development office at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the president of Leslye Lynford & Co., a consulting firm serving nonprofit organizations, with services that include board development, capital campaigns, annual funds, and special events.
In her spare time, she is a Girl Scout troop leader to a senior troop and assists her daughter in running a junior troop at a homeless shelter in Mount Vernon, New York. She, her two children Hugh and Rachel, and their spoiled beagle Annie live in Tuckahoe, New York.
Raymond Rigoglioso, Senior Program Consultant
Ray comes to The Good Dog Foundation as a communications consultant with 16 years
of experience working for nonprofit organizations. Specializing in helping nonprofits
develop language to effectively communicate their work to constituents, donors,
and the public, he has written and edited nearly every type of material that
a nonprofit produces, from case statements and grant proposals to newsletters
and websites to multi-author books. His clients have included Gilda’s Club Worldwide,
The John A. Hartford Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Lenox Hill
Hospital, and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.
Prior to becoming a consultant in 2001, he held positions as the senior editor at the United Hospital Fund, director of communications for the Center for Strategic Communications, and editor of The
Picker Report, a thought journal on patient-centered health care. For a time, he was also a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines. He and his partner, Keith, live in Greenburgh, New York, with their cat Plato and miniature poodle Baxter, a Good Dog.
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