Lauri has been involved in fundraising for 25 years. In her current position, she advises entrepreneurs and organizations interested in social purpose business ventures and earned income strategies. Before that, she worked as Executive Director at The Enterprising Kitchen where she was responsible for restructuring all business operations--sales, marketing, production, and manufacturing--of natural soap and spa products enterprise to achieve delicate balance between economic profitability and improved social outcomes. Efforts resulted in increased product sales, expanded training curriculum, and increased trainee skill levels and employability. She forged strategic alliances with a broad array of corporate, government, and community partners, resulting in major annual budget growth. Lauri currently serves on the board of Growing Home. She earned Masters in Urban Planning/Policy from UIC and a BA from University of Wisconsin. She is a member of Social Enterprise Alliance.

Margaret has been involved in social enterprise for eight years and in workforce development for twenty-four. In her current position, she is responsible for overseeing a culinary skills training program, which includes a restaurant. The restaurant acts as a training center for homeless job-seekers as well as a source of earned income for the program. Previously, as Director of Training at Jane Addams Resource Corporation (JARC), Margaret was responsible for overseeing manufacturing skills training programs for incumbent workers and economically disadvantaged job seekers, which used a combination of earned income, private and government funding sources. Margaret currently serves as Board Member for JARC. She earned a Bachelors in Anthropology and French from Lawrence University. She is part of a leadership group that is planning a collaborative, national network to support the growth of food service based training and social enterprise.

Sandee Kastrul is the president and co-founder of i.c.stars, an innovative nonprofit leadership and technology training program founded in 1999 to prepare inner-city adults for technology careers and community leadership. Sandee has been involved in development for 10 years. In her current position, she is responsible for the strategic direction and scale of the i.c.stars program and the social enterprise "Bridges". i.c.stars has trained 21 cycles of future technology and community leaders, has maintained a nearly 100% placement rate for its graduates with an earning increase of over 200% and over 2,000 hours of community service hours invested back into the communities we come from. In 2005 i.c.stars launched its social enterprise and it has grown by 100% year over year providing IT staffing, project consulting and retained services to SMB’s, Non-for profits and fortune 500 companies. She earned BFA in Theater from Ithaca College and is a member of CTCNet, P.A.V.E., BDPA, and SIM.

Gail has been involved in development for 10 years. In her current position, she has explored various earned-income opportunities and is currently opening a "green" retail store to support the foundation as an earned-income social enterprise. This experience has included research of various sustainable opportunities, study of their relationship to the CUSF mission and strategic planning, partnership development, grant writing, constituency buy-in, budgeting, and scalable implementation. Gail currently serves as a volunteer for The Urbana Rotary, Board member, incoming president, various school committees, booster clubs and PTAs. She is the past President for the Junior League of Champaign-Urbana, and is past President of the ECI Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She earned a BLA in Landscape Architecture from University of Illinois and a MFA in Fine Arts, Graphic Design from University of Illinois. She is a member of Association of Fundraising Professionals, Junior League International, Rotary International, National School Foundations Association, and Board Source, Inc.