FEATURED SPEAKER BIOS United by Faith - Women's Funding ...

FEATURED SPEAKER BIOS
United by Faith:
Building a Better Future
for Women and Girls
January 26 - 27, 2010
Dallas, Texas

MAHA ALKHATEEB
Co-Director, Peaceful Families Project
Maha Alkhateeb is an activist, writer, and photographer dedicated to human rights advocacy
through community building and artistic expression. As co-director of the Peaceful Families
Project (PFP), she engages Muslim leaders, Muslim communities, and mainstream providers to
raise awareness and develop services for the prevention and intervention of domestic violence.
She also collaborates with mainstream and interfaith organizations and service professionals
to provide culturally sensitive programming for their Muslim clientele. Ms. Alkhateeb co-edited
Change from Within: Diverse Perspectives on Domestic Violence in Muslim Communities, and
conducts research on domestic violence among Muslims by exploring the experiences of
survivors, families, and communities. Recent projects she has spearheaded include launching
the first grassroots video campaign against domestic violence, and a national study of the role
of religion among Muslim women survivors. Prior to her work with PFP, Ms. Alkhateeb
conducted research at Catholic University as the Muslim researcher for a multi-faith Pew
Charitable Trusts study focusing upon the interconnection of religious institutions and civic incorporation
among new immigrants.
THE REVEREND DR. CLAUDETTE A. COPELAND
Founder, Destiny Ministries
The Reverend Dr. Claudette A. Copeland received her undergraduate education at the
University of Connecticut, where she concentrated her studies in the field of Psychology. After
receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree, she went on to earn her Master of Divinity in Pastoral
Care and Counseling from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
She earned the Doctorate of Ministry Degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton,
Ohio, where she also served for several years as a visiting Professor and Mentor for doctoral
studies.
Licensed as an evangelist at age 18 (The Church of God in Christ), the ministry is central to her
life. Reverend Copeland was ordained in 1979 and has served in a variety of ministry settings,
including the Hospital Chaplaincy, the Mission Field (in Haiti, South Africa, West Africa and
East Africa), and is a former member of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.
In 1980, she was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force Chaplaincy. She and her
husband were the first African-American clergy couple in the history of the U.S. Military
Chaplaincy, where they served with distinction before returning to the civilian pastorate.
Dr. Copeland’s work has been published in the African American Devotional Bible (Zondervan); and in the African American Pulpit
(Judson Press), where she serves as a board member and contributing writer. She is the author of the book, Coming Through the
Darkness: Cancer & One Woman’s Journey To Wholeness (Red Nail Press), along with the companion prayer journal, Coming
Through. She released her book entitled, Stories from Inner Space: Confessions of a Preacher Woman and other Tales (Red Nail
Press 2003,), and a Musical CD entitled, There’s Never Been a Time featuring an engaging cross section of sacred music styles. Her
latest literary contribution is included in This Is My Story: Testimonies and Sermons of Black Women in Ministry, published by John
Knox Press, 2005.
Reverend Copeland is the founder of Destiny Ministries, a national empowerment group for women. She has been featured in many
journals and magazines, including Gospel Today, Essence Magazine, and Ebony Magazine as one of the 15 notable women
preachers in the nation. Dr. Copeland was included in the Smithsonian Institute Exhibit: “Speak to My Heart”, Communities of Faith
and Contemporary African American Lives. (Anacostia Museum) She made history as the first woman to offer the keynote address to
the National MLK Jr. Commemorative March in a major urban venue, addressing over 80,000 persons in San Antonio for this great
event (2004).

KANYERE EATON
Executive Director, The Sister Fund
Kanyere Eaton leads The Sister Fund, a private women’s foundation that works at the nexus of
faith and social justice. In 2005, Women’s Funding Network awarded her the Changing the
Face of Philanthropy award for her contributions for a gran. In the same month, the Association of
Black Foundation Executives presented her with the Emerging Leader in Philanthropy award. On
April 30, 2008, she was recognized by the North Star Fund for her outstanding commitment to
social change toward the furtherance of equality, economic justice and peace.
Kanyere has worked in both the public and private sectors as a social service professional, with
backgrounds in early childhood education, substance abuse, direct service management and
hunger prevention. She is an ordained minister and a trained social worker. Embracing the
important work of helping to build meaningful linkages between theology and community, she
previously served as Director of Social Services at The Riverside Church in New York City.
Currently pursuing a Doctorate in Ministry degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary,
Kanyere holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University; a Master of Divinity degree
from Union Theological Seminary and a Master of Science and Social Work degree from Columbia University. Ordained in 1991,
she is founder of Making It Plain Ministries, Inc.
CHRISTINE H. GRUMM
President & CEO, Women’s Funding Network
Chris has more than three decades of experience as a leader in effecting social change through
civil society, especially through women’s philanthropy. A sought-after speaker, Chris has served
in top leadership positions in the non-profit world, both in the United States and internationally. At
Women’s Funding Network, Chris has guided women’s and girls’ funds in the U.S. and abroad,
through an ambitious program of expansion that resulted in $465 million in collective working
assets in 2008 and grown the Network from a membership of 70 to 2000 to 155 today. Prior
to joining Women’s Funding Network, Chris served as Executive Director of the Chicago
Foundation for Women. Under her leadership, CFW increased its grant-making to one million
dollars annually and completed an endowment campaign surpassing its $5 million goal.
Previously Chris served as Deputy General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation in
Geneva, Switzerland and was Executive Director of Education Program Associates. Chris served
as an official delegate to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing
in 1995 and was named one of “21 Leaders for the 21st Century” by Womensenews and was
also named one of the 100 Most Influential Women of the San Francisco Bay Area by the San
Francisco Business Times.

LAYLI PHILLIPS MAPARYAN, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Women’s Studies & Associated Faculty of African
American Studies at Georgia State University
In 2006, Dr. Phillips published The Womanist Reader (Routledge), a comprehensive
anthology documenting the first quarter century of womanist thought and the first-ever volume
to focus on womanism “on its own.” In Fall 2007 and Spring 2008, she co-taught a 10-week
community course entitled, “World Religions and Women’s Economic Empowerment: Womanist,
Feminist, Sacred, and Secular Perspectives” with Laurie Patton of Emory University. Based on
this course, she co-hosted with Laurie Patton a 10-part television series entitle Faith and
Feminism, created by Emmy award-winning producer Angela Harrington Rice for Atlanta
Interfaith Broadcasters. She is a former member of the Advisory Council of the Atlanta Women’s
Foundation’s Faith, Feminism, and Philanthropy project and a current member of the National
Advisory Board of Foreverfamily (formerly Aid to Children of Imprisoned Mothers). She is
co-founder of the Liberia Working Group, an Atlanta-based network of community leaders,
businesspersons, scholars, and members of the philanthropic community interested in social,
educational, and economic development for Liberian refugee women and their families, and
the newly appointed chairperson of the University Consortium for Liberia (UCL), a network of
colleges and universities in the state of Georgia with projects or interests in Liberia. Currently, she is working in collaboration with the
University of Liberia to develop a Gender Studies Program for that institution.
Layli Phillips Maparyan obtained a Ph.D. in Psychology from Temple University, an M.S. in Psychology from Penn State, and a B.A.
from Spelman College, where she majored in Philosophy. Her extracurricular interests include spirituality, metaphysics, and
contemplative practice, as well as holistic health, naturalistic healing, wellness, and ecology, all of which inform her perspectives on
justice, peace, and social change. She is recently married to Liberian journalist and filmmaker Seboe N. Maparyan and, as a result,
is a mother to three new children in addition to the two she has already raised.
RUTH W. MESSINGER
President, American Jewish World Service
Ruth W. Messinger is (AJWS), an organization that works to alleviate poverty, hunger and
disease in the developing world through support of grassroots social-change projects, and
through policy advocacy, volunteer service and education about global justice within the Jewish
community. Ms. Messinger assumed this role in 1998 following a 20-year career in public
service in New York City. She has been among leading antigenocide, peace and human rights
advocates called upon to advise President Obama, and was recently appointed to the Obama
administration’s newly formed Task Force on Global Poverty andDevelopment. Ms. Messinger is
a national leader in the movement to end the genocide in Sudan, and is involved in
organizing faith-based efforts to secure human rights around the world. Ms. Messinger has
received honorary degrees and awards from four major American rabbinical schools,and
awards from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Women’s Funding Network and the
American Jewish Committee. She is an active member of her congregation, the Society for the
Advancement of Judaism. For seven consecutive years, she was among the Forward’s “50 most
influential Jews of the year.” Ms. Messinger has three children, eight grandchildren, and two greatgrandchildren.

REVEREND DR. KATHARINE RHODES HENDERSON
President, Auburn Theological Seminary
The Rev. Dr. Katharine Rhodes Henderson is President of Auburn Theological Seminary in the
city of New York, an institution founded in 1818 with a long history of commitment to
progressive social causes such as abolition of slavery and women’s rights. Author of God’s
Troublemakers: How Women of Faith are Changing the World (Continuum, 2006),
Henderson is an international leader in theological education. She has pioneered programs
for excellence in religious leadership of all faiths and progressive moral leadership in the
public square.
Henderson has spearheaded innovative educational programs, ranging from convening CEOs
of major American corporations to reviewing the ethics of their business practice; to
multifaith women’s organizing; to infusing mainstream media with responsible engaging
religious voices; and the gathering of young leaders from war-torn countries to practice conflict resolution and multifaith
understanding through Auburn’s flagship youth leadership program, Face to Face/Faith to Faith.
Among her many affiliations, Henderson serves on the boards of the New York Women’s Foundation and the Ghost Ranch Camp
and Conference Center. She is a Parish Associate of The First Presbyterian Church in New York City. A native of Louisville, Kentucky,
Henderson is a graduate of the College of Wooster (Phi Beta Kappa) and Union Theological Seminary (NY). Henderson also holds
a doctorate from Teachers
College, Columbia University, New York City.
DEBORAH RICHARDSON
Chief Program Officer, Women’s Funding Network
Deborah Richardson has a 30-year track record in program development, administration, and
fundraising. Prior to her appointment as Chief Program Officer, Deborah was the CEO of The
Atlanta Women’s Foundation (AWF). She has also served as the Vice President of Programs
and Strategic Initiatives at AWF; Director of Program Development for Fulton County Juvenile
Court; founding Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Fund and Managing Director of the
National Black Arts Festival.
As an advocate on child sexual exploitation, Deborah has designed leading programs for
girls victimized by commercial sexual exploitation and is the co-author of “Ending Sex
Trafficking of Children in Atlanta” (Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, Spring 2007).

BECKY SYKES
Executive Director, Dallas Women’s Foundation
Becky Sykes leads the Dallas Women’s Foundation, a public foundation that promotes women’s
philanthropy and raises money to support community programs that help women and girls realize
their full potential.
A life-long dallasite, she graduated from Austin College in Sherman, Texas with degrees in French
and Government. She taught high school Civics and French for several years, “retired” to raise
two children and do volunteer work, then returned to full time employment at Greyhound Lines,
Kera Public Television and the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.
Most of her work through the years has involved public policy, non-profit management,
strategic planning and fundraising. She has served on a number of community boards,
including Dallas City Plan Commission, the Junior League of Dallas, the YWCA, the Dallas
Summit, the League of Women Voters and the Women’s Council of Dallas County. She is an elder
at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas. She has received several awards, including the Maura
Award (“women helping women”), the Susan B. Anthony award, the “Executive Director of the Year” award from the Women’s
Resource Center of North Texas Legal Services, the League of Women Voters’ Myrtle Bales Bulkley Award, the Women of Excellence
Award, given by the YWCA and Women’s Enterprise Magazine, “The Athena Award” (given by the Greater Dallas Chamber of
Commerce/Women’s Business Initiative), and the Woman of Distinction Award from the American Association of University Women
(Dallas and Texas branches).
In 1985 she joined with 18 other women to start the Dallas Women’s Foundation and served as its first Board Chair for three years.
She returned to the Dallas Women’s Foundation in October of 1998 as Executive Director. The Dallas Women’s Foundation is one of
the oldest and largest of the 110 women’s foundations in the U.S.
TAYYIBAH TAYLOR
Founding Editor-in-Chief & Publisher, Azizah Magazine
Tayyibah Taylor works for the empowerment of Muslim women and is the. Azizah, the voice of
Muslim American women has been featured in Newsweek and Business Week Small Biz and
won a 2009 New American Media National Ethnic Journalism Award. Ms. Taylor has
presented lectures on Islam and Muslim women at national and international conferences. She
has travelled to 31 countries, including five interfaith pilgrimages with Jews and Christians and
several trips in the capacity of a public diplomacy envoy. Ms. Taylor has recently been named
one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies
Center, a think tank based in the Middle East.

BARBARA R. THOMPSON
Co-Founder, Global Village School
Barbara R. Thompson is an award-winning writer and editor specializing in social issues, oral
history and book development. For the past 25 years she has also worked extensively with child
survivors of war, violence, poverty and racial discrimination, and her oral history projects include
Innocents, a photojournalism project combining the stories of Bosnian child survivors of war and
US inner-city youth. Ms. Thompson is the co-founder of International Community School in
Decatur, GA and the Saturday School for unschooled child survivors of war and their mothers.
She founded the refugee ministry of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, GA, and most
recently helped found the Global Village School of Atlanta for teenage girls with critical gaps in
their formal education due to war and refugee camp experiences.
Ms. Thompson has an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and was awarded
The Christopher Award for co-authoring A Distant Grief, the story of a Ugandan refugee. She
has been on writing assignments throughout the U.S. as well as to Central America, Nepal,
Bangladesh, Croatia and Bosnia.
RABBI ALISSA WISE
Program Director, Ma’yan
Rabbi Alissa Wise joined Ma’yan as Program Director in June 2009 upon completing her
studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Before training for the
rabbinate, Alissa worked as a tenant organizer with the Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn and
was a participant in AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. As a rabbinical student she worked
as a chaplain at Planned Parenthood, authored a pastoral counseling curriculum on queer
reproductive rights and loss, and was the Education Director at both String of Pearls Hebrew
School in Princeton, New Jersey, and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) in New York
City.
Alissa is currently also the Coordinator of Mussar (Jewish ethical tradition) and Social Justice with
the Mussar Leadership Program in Philadelphia. Alissa was recognized in 2009 as one of the
“Heeb100”-- Heeb Magazine’s annual roundup of “the 100 Jews you should know”.