How-to Guides

Jamie Bearse is an award-winning nonprofit CEO and executive. Over the past 21 years, he’s helped lead and advance cancer causes through strategic planning, fundraising, retention and recruitment, and team and culture building. Currently, he’s the CEO and founder of Build a Better Nonprofit and lives outside of Boston with his family.

Rebecca Britt is a nonprofit interventionist with a master's degree in program evaluation, who has internationally scaled her own programs Stable Moments and For Purpose Live, helping nonprofits get clear and focused so they can make a big impact.

Stacie Cornwell has 18 years of experience in public accounting. She specializes in serving nonprofit, higher education, social service, healthcare and religious organizations, and she has extensive experience providing single audit services. Stacie serves as the nonprofit industry leader in the Armanino Growth Office.

She works collaboratively with her clients, to keep them informed of accounting regulations that can impact their audit. She also provides specialized expertise on complex accounting issues, including revenue recognition, convertible debt instruments, investments and fair value measurements, endowment accounting, equity compensation, board governance and benchmarks for financial performance. In addition, she has experience performing gap analyses and developing process and workflow charts to strengthen internal controls and mitigate risk.

Stacie Cornwell is a certified public accountant and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Texas and California societies of CPAs. She is a former adjunct professor of accounting at the University of San Francisco, and she received a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a Master of Business Administration from Arizona State University. Stacie is the chair of the Armanino Women’s Advancement Network and sits on the Women in Leadership Advisory Panel at the University of Houston, Bauer College of Business.

Karen Kendrick is the senior director of learning at Veritus Group. She has a master’s degree in education and counseling and more than 28 years’ experience in nonprofit fundraising — both in the education market and for social service agencies.

Karen has served as program director and executive director of a nonprofit, giving her both programmatic and administrative experience. She has created strong comprehensive fundraising programs from the ground up and served as a director of development and major gift officer.

Kalie VanDewater is associate content and online editor at NAPCO Media.

Jessica Ayre is a content marketing specialist at Text Request, a business messaging solution.

Felida Villarreal currently serves as the president and CEO of Valley Initiative for Development and Advancement (VIDA), committed to higher education attainment and expanding accessibility to equitable education opportunities. She is also responsible for implementing and maintaining regional alliances for resource development and public funding in the educational nonprofit sector, ensuring fiscal integrity and compliance with all public and private grant funded requirements. 

Prior to this role, Felida also served as VIDA’s deputy executive director and director of finance. In addition, she has nearly a decade of accounting and financial management experience in the private and public sector.

Felida is a Certified Public Accountant and an active licensee of the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy. She holds a master’s degree in accountancy from the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley and a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in accounting from the University of Texas – Pan American. 

She actively volunteers her time to promote community involvement, currently serving as a board director for local organization, City of Mercedes Chamber of Commerce as well as a member of the Fast Company executive board. She also currently serves in the Hidalgo County’s Prosperity Taskforce, an initiative to address the ongoing challenges of poverty and promote economic mobility through education.