Nancy Racette is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of DRi, an executive search and development consulting firm dedicating to helping nonprofits grow, thrive, and excel. As a leader at DRi, Nancy advises Boards of Directors and CEOs on how to identify their most transformative initiatives and how to invest in staffing structures to advance them. She has led executive searches for more than 150 leaders reshaping critical operations at award-winning non-profits. Her work has aided such major organizations as AAUW, the Brookings Institution, and Truth Initiative.
Nancy’s consulting draws on her decades of experience reshaping fundraising at the American Red Cross and Girl Scouts of America. She has broad expertise in cause marketing, disaster fundraising, major giving, and fundraising campaigns and has earned a Certified Fund Raising Executive certification.
Nancy is also an innovative volunteer in the nonprofit sector. She is a past president for the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Washington, D.C. Chapter; a Board member at AFP’s Foundation for Philanthropy; a chair of AFP’s Education Advisory Committee; and a member of its Professional Advancement Division committee. She also served on the Board of the Ellington Fund for the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
Nancy is a graduate of Boston University’s School of Public Communications and attended the Executive Management Program at Harvard University. She lives with her husband, a math teacher for special needs children, in Falls Church, Virginia.