In her role as chief executive officer of the California Association of Nonprofits (CalNonprofits) - a statewide policy alliance and the voice for California’s nonprofit community - Jan Masaoka frequently looks at the role of the nonprofit in society. As a national recognized writer, researcher, speaker and thinker, she often does that by challenging norms and conventional wisdom, looking at things in a different way. With her keynote today, she remains true to form.
Among her awards and accomplishments, Jan was named Nonprofit Executive of the Year by Nonprofit Times and is an eight-time designee as one of the Fifty Most Influential people in the nonprofit sector nationwide. She has testified on nonprofit policy issues at the federal and state levels, and her articles have been published in Nonprofit Quarterly, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Sacramento Bee, and Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Her books include Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability (Jossey-Bass,co-authored with Jeanne Bell and Steve Zimmerman); The Nonprofit’s Guide to HR (Nolo); The Best of the Board Cafe (Fieldstone); and All Hands on Board: The Board of Directors in All-Volunteer Organizations (Boardsource).
Before CalNonprofits, Jan was the executive director of CompassPoint for 14 years, a nonprofit consulting/training firm. She also founded and wrote Blue Avocado magazine, growing it to 64,000 subscribers before leaving in late 2015. Jan’s volunteer work has included serving as board chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center, founding chair of Community Initiatives, and a member of the Policy Committee of the Independent Sector, the San Francisco Telecommunications Commission, and the San Francisco Complete Count Committee in 2010.