Jessica James

Jessica James, Founder and Principal consultant of Jessica James Consulting (JJC), has held nearly every position within a development department, and now consults with a broad range of nonprofits on all aspects of fundraising. Jessica’s in-house on-profit development experience includes managing government and large institutional grants for Safe Horizon, running all events and external affairs for Inwood House, launching the Young Women’s Leadership Network’s first corporate engagement and volunteer program, and building a development department from scratch for Grace Institute. Jessica also served on the Tri-State Finance Team for Obama for America in 2008, working with major donors and bundlers and managing all logistics for high-profile speaker events and fundraisers. With a Masters in Social Work from Columbia University, Jessica is skilled at navigating complexity, understanding systems change, and communicating effectively to diverse stakeholders. This underpinning gives her a natural ease as a facilitator, which she does as part of all of her engagements, and she is regularly sought out to lead workshops, panels and trainings. She is a featured speaker at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, Nonprofit New York, Columbia University School of Social Work, and South by Southwest (SXSW) in 2018, 2019, and 2020.