Collaboratory for Community Support

Joseph A. "Jay" Connor, JD/MBA, is the Founder/CEO of The Collaboratory for Community Support. He has extensive leadership experience in the business, nonprofit, and public policy arenas. He has spoken to audiences across North America on a broad range of subjects which have at their root the elements of change and leadership development fundamental to success in each of these sectors. For example, from his work with leaders of diverse constituencies in communities across America, Jay has seen that in order to be effective, our emerging community leaders must be comfortable at the intersection not only of organizations and cultures but also at the intersection of the nonprofit, business and governmental sectors. This is a key message of his book, published spring 2003 (second edition 2005) by Fieldstone Alliance, Community Visions, Community Solutions: Grantmaking for Comprehensive Impact. It is the most extensive discussion available on the leadership art of linking sectors, initiatives, technologies and systems in implementing community solutions.

Before founding The Collaboratory, Jay was simultaneously an Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan, Interim Planning Director for Washtenaw County, Michigan, and President/CEO of Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW), a nonprofit management support organization in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has written for the National Civic Review, Foundation News and Commentary, Board Member, PNNOnline, NonProfit World, as well as, various academic journals.

Jay also has more than 20 years of experience in senior business management at the multi-billion dollar corporate level. He was West Coast Regional President of ADT Security Systems, where he oversaw a $150 million unit with 1100 employees and offices in 35 communities. Simultaneously, he commuted to New York City where he served ADT as Senior Vice President, Marketing and Field Support. He has also been a Group Vice President for Jonson Controls, a $10 billion company. In all his business positions, Jay created a corporate environment emphasizing respect for employees through team empowerment, distributed decision making, career development, and increased expectations.

In addition to his professional commitments, Jay has been an active volunteer and community leader. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Nonprofit Centers Network headquartered in San Francisco, California. He was a board member of the Support Centers of America, the seminal nonprofit management federation. He served as Board Chair of Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is a member of the Steering Committee for Community Literacy to the congressionally established National Institute for Literacy in Washington DC. He is a member of the Business Week Advisory Council. He has also served as a founding member of the McAdam Book Award Committee which recognizes the best book published in the nonprofit field each year.

Education:

Northwestern University Graduate School of Management and Law School, Chicago, IL, M.B.A. and Juris Doctor degrees awarded in 1979. Austin Scholar with concentrations in Marketing & Finance.

Recent Publications:

Connor, J. A., (2007) Leading into the Void: Reframing Leadership for Our Interconnected Future.

Connor, J. A., (in review, 2006) Community Support Organizations: The Third Sector's Mechanism for Representation and Agenda Setting. Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Connor, J. A., (Summer, 2003) Community Support Organizations: Enabling Citizen Democracy to Sustain Comprehensive Community Impact. National Civic Review, 92(2), 113-129.

Connor, J. A., and Kadel-Taras, S. (February 2003 - revised 2005) Community Visions, Community Solutions: Grantmaking for Comprehensive Impact. Minneapolis, MN: Fieldstone Alliance.

Connor, J. A., and Kadel-Taras, S. (December 2001) Organizing Community Work to Reach Solutions. PNNOnline, December 15.

Connor, J. A., and Kadel-Taras, S. (June 2000) The Community Support Organization: Linking Not-for-Profits to Community Impact. The Not-for-Profit CEO Monthly Letter, 7(8), 1-3.

Connor, J. A., and Kadel-Taras, S. (March 2000) From Board Governance to Community Governance. Board Member, 9(3), 6-7.

Conor, J. A., and Kadel-Taras, S. (July/August 2000) Relevant Review: Book Review of Letts, Ryan, and Grossman's "High Performance Nonprofit Organizations: Managing Upstream for Greater Impact." Nonprofit World, 18(4), 38-39.

Connor, J. A., Ventrelle, C. H., and Kadel-Taras, S. (March/April 2000) Learning from Funder Collaboratives. Foundation News & Commentary, 41(2), 44-47.

Vinokur-Kaplan, D. and Connor, J. A. (1999) Nonprofit Incubators: Comparative Models for Nurturing New Third Sector Organizations. 1998 ISTR Conference Working Paper Series. ISTR Third International Conference: The Contribution of the Third Sector to Social, Economic and Political Change. Universite de Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland.

Vinokur-Kaplan, D. and Connor, J. A. (1999) Life Cycles of Community "Incubators" of Nonprofit Organizations. Paper Presented at The Society for Social Work and Research. Austin, Texas, January 22-24, 1999.

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