Leadership
Dr. David B. Franklin
President & CEO
Dr. David B. Franklin, Ph.D., is an accomplished non-profit strategist and minister who has devoted his life to creating, developing, and fostering the growth of community-based organizations.
As a respected leader in community engagement and impact, Dr. Franklin specializes in nurturing health in organizations through strategic development. His extensive experience, combined with his inspirational leadership style, has been instrumental in establishing initiatives that empower communities and secure funds to enhance programmatic impact for those in need of support. His steadfast dedication to transformation has not only positively impacted lives worldwide but also successfully raised millions of dollars for grassroots safety-net organizations.
Dr. Franklin holds a B.A. in Business Administration, a Master of Divinity in Theological Studies, and a Ph.D. in Organization Development.
Staff
Charla Montgomery
Operations/Administration
Charla Montgomery brings over 20 years of corporate business operations and management experience. Her extensive and varied business background includes program administration, process improvement, operations infrastructure design, and implementation, employee training and development and event management.
She successfully applies her passion and experience to assist in the management and development of the organization’s administration, programming, personnel, and fiscal well being. While her primary business skills and endeavors have been in the “for-profit” industry, over the years she has continued to stay connected to community enrichment programs supporting adult education as well as cultural and artistic awareness projects.
Charla is an effective project thought partner who enjoys serving as a reliable ‘sounding board’ during idea discovery, a supporter of viewing situations from various perspectives and a promoter of innovative thinking.
Denise Deluca
Consumer Education Specialist
Denise provides essential expertise in community outreach, organizing and program promotions. Denise utilizes her keen ability to identify community challenges as well as determine the applicable programs/services that meet the needs of the communities we serve.
Board
Sister Marie de Porres Taylor
Board Chair
Sister Marie de Porres Taylor is a Program Administrator and Educator with over 25 years of experience and service to communities in the East Bay region of Northern California. She is the former Director of Community Based Services of the Catholic Youth Organization, where she oversaw the agency’s diverse programs including its Foster Family Agency, Canal Family Services, Mission Day Care and CYO Athletics programs. She has lead aggressive and successful resource development campaigns for several community services agencies such as Oakland Housing Authority, Oakland Private Industry Council and the Office of the Mayor of Oakland. She has also served as the Department Chair of Home Economics at Holy Names High School, Oakland and as the Director of the Black Catholic Pastoral Center for the Diocese of the Oakland, CA.
Paul Pryde
Board Member
Paul Pryde is a public policy and finance consultant specializing in solutions to the capital and credit problems of underserved businesses and communities. He was responsible for organizing one of the first securitized sales of small business loans financed with federal funds and subsequently advised states and localities on the valuation and/or sale of over $100 million in economic and community development loans. More recently, he was principal author of a feasibility report, for the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund, on the securitization of community development loans and served as chief policy consultant for the U.S. Treasury Department’s $1.5 billion State Small Business Credit Initiative.
Mr. Pryde has been a consultant to, and board member of, a number of national policy development organizations, including Wall Street Without Walls, the Capital Access Task Force of the Minority Business Development Agency, the Northeast-Midwest Institute, the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, the Finance Projectland the Corporation for Enterprise Development where he served a four-year term as chairperson. He is also the author and co-author of several publications on markets, economic development and entrepreneurship, including Black Entrepreneurship in America, an examination of enterprise formation and economic progress in the African-American community. Mr. Pryde is a graduate of Howard University and has conducted graduate work in business and public administration at George Washington University.
Brian K. Woodson Sr.
Board Secretary
Servant Brian K. Woodson, Sr. is the founding pastor of the Bay Area Christian Connection (BACC). BACC is an inner city church with a full service women’s treatment program called Covenant Sisters and a feeding program that this year has distributed over 453,000 lbs of food to the inner-city residents of Oakland Ca. Pastor Woodson’s educational training includes a Bachelor of Industrial Design Degree from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York; Master of Divinity from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio; and most recently continuing studies in Old Testament at the Graduate Theological Seminary, University of California at Berkeley. He has traveled in Europe, Scandinavia, Israel and most recently to Burkina Faso, Africa.