MORE ABOUT LIZ
Where do you work? Where are you from?
I live and work from a home office in Kitchener-Waterloo. I grew up on a farm outside a small town a couple hours away.
What do you do at JCA?
I lead the Professional Services team. I love working with our consultants and clients on a wide-variety of projects. It’s inspiring to work together as a team towards a shared goal. Together we can solve the unsolvable and make dreams come true! As a member of the Leadership team, I help guide the direction of the company and work to continuously improve our operations and service offerings.
What is your background? What brought you to JCA?
I was fortunate to have stumbled upon nonprofit work very early in my career. I completed a Cultural Management co-op program during my undergraduate studies which included six work placements in the field. This allowed me to test out different roles and see first-hand how they each contribute to the big picture. After graduation, I worked as a fundraising generalist before deciding to specialize in prospect research. Prospect research was my gateway to information systems. Eventually, I decided to go back to school part-time to complete a Master of Information (MI) degree. I joined JCA after completing my MI so that I could use my expertise and experience on a daily basis to help organizations design and develop their fundraising systems.
What do you do outside of JCA?
I enjoy reading (I love a cozy mystery); gardening; cooking (soup is my ideal meal); watching baseball and managing my fantasy baseball team; listening to records; and exploring nearby parks and trails. I am also a proud lover of cats.
What is one of your favorite stories of/with a JCA client?
I had the pleasure of working with the University of Arizona Foundation for several years on multiple implementation projects. This allowed me to form exceptionally close relationships with the project team. We shared a lot of laughs over the years (finding levity is an essential implementation survival skill!). When I went on-site for their CRM go-live, I was honored to receive multiple gifts of Cheez-It crackers because they all knew they were my favorite snack and at the time, unavailable in Canada. That was a very memorable and touching moment. And thankfully, I can now get Cheez-Its at my local grocery store.