Happy New Year! I am writing as the proud Vice Chair of Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Later this month, I will be succeeding Melanie Todman as Chair of MA Appleseed, and I first want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their partnership and support – Appleseed’s strength comes from our entire community, and it’s only by working together that we’re able to move the dial on urgent social justice issues impacting people across Massachusetts.
As you already know, our much beloved Executive Director Deb Silva departed last month to become Director of the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission. And now, Maddie Poage, our equally beloved Director of Development and Communications since 2017 (and, briefly, our Acting Executive Director), has informed us that she will be leaving Appleseed at the end of January to assume the position of Communications Manager at Just Vision. As with Deb, this is terrific news for Maddie, and we wish her nothing but the best, but we will miss her greatly here at Appleseed.
In light of these moves, Melanie and I have put together a Succession Committee of our Board of Directors which we are jointly leading to quickly secure a new interim Executive Director. On a longer-term basis, the Succession Committee will be moving forward to hire a permanent Executive Director by way of a careful, comprehensive search process.
These are obviously crucial and challenging efforts and times for Appleseed, but we are well-situated to address them, programmatically, financially, and in terms of our outstanding staff and dedicated Board of Directors. Having chaired and/or served on search committees of about a half-dozen other leadership searches for non-profit organizations, I know this is also an opportunity to strategize about how we can maximize our impact and I’m looking forward to the fresh perspectives and new talent we will be bringing in to launch this next chapter in MA Appleseed’s 30-year history.
If you have any questions – or, indeed, any Executive Director suggestions or recommendations – please don’t hesitate to reach out to me per the contact information set forth below. In any event, we very much appreciate all your support of Appleseed and shall, of course, keep you informed of developments.
All the best,
John A. Shutkin (he/him/his)
Vice Chair of the Board
Massachusetts Appleseed
Email me
414-306-1929
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