Jody Cornish

SENIOR ADVISOR FOR INNOVATION AND INVESTMENT CITY YEAR Jody Cornish is a Social Impact and Philanthropic Advisor, working at the nexus of social impact strategy, organizational effectiveness and resource aggregation. She currently serves three-quarter time as a Senior Advisor for Innovation and Investment at City Year, where she works with the Office of the President, Strategic Growth, External Affairs and Development to strengthen City Year’s positioning as an education leader, optimize growth strategy and support fundraising. With her remaining time, Jody partners with a set of philanthropic organizations and social enterprises to optimize their strategies for impact. Jody also serves on the Advisory Board for Next Generation Learning Challenge and as a Board member for Big Picture Learning. Previously, Jody was a Managing Partner with New Profit – a Boston-based venture philanthropy fund. During her time with New Profit, she worked with the senior leadership team and Board of more than 30 non-profit organizations to optimize their strategies for growth and impact. During her last 5 years at New Profit, she was the co-lead for New Profit’s ground-breaking K-12 education fund, Reimagine Learning, which combined work in policy change, investments in leading edge education entrpreneurs, programmatic work in youth voice and in community-informed school change in Essex County and convening and engagement of nearly 1000 education innovators across sectors. This work was featured in this Deloitte whitepaper. Prior to joining New Profit, Jody was the co-founder and lead strategist for Lodestar International, an international development consultancy focused on supporting cross-sector collaboration to address entrenched economic development challenges in the developing world. She previously worked in strategy execution with leading technology and financial services firms in New York City. She started her career as a consultant at Monitor Group, where she focused on research-informed growth strategies for start-ups, mergers and companies in transition. Jody’s passion for social impact stems from her own background and her commitment to equity. She is a first generation college graduate from rural Pennsylvania and knows firsthand the impact that circumstances and luck can have on life trajectories.