There are three things Dianne discovered over her lifetime that define her values: personal responsibility, lifelong learning and continuous improvement. There three things she’s discovered over her lifetime that she’s pretty good at: writing, planning and helping people figure things out.

She’s been blessed to parlay her values and talents into two professional passions: one is helping nonprofit organizations master their psychology, mobilize their people and manage their processes so they can sustainably monetize their missions. The other is helping high achievers master six specific areas of their lives so they can consistently experience full engagement, joy and confidence. Dianne elevates both passions through serving as a fundraising trainer, coach and consultant AND a Certified High Performance Coach (CHPC) through her business, Ankhacia Enterprises, LLC.

In her first career, she explored her affinity for writing at Publicity Ink, Corp, a boutique marketing communications firm where she served as an account executive. She wrote press releases, radio and print ad copy, and coordinated special events for clients. She later served as a news clerk and freelance feature writer with the Virgin Islands Daily News and after that a public relations specialist with the University of the Virgin Islands.

This background helped launch her second career, fundraising. That began in 1998 when she joined The Elaine Clark Center for Exceptional Children as a development coordinator. There she helped institute strategies that recouped more than 60 percent of lost government funding. In addition she was instrumental in securing a $250,000 endowment from the Goizueta Foundation to establish four tuition-based scholarships for children who otherwise would not be able to receive specialized education and services.

She then moved on Prevent Child Abuse Georgia, where as statewide resource development specialist she provided fundraising training to chartered council affiliates across the state. A couple years after that she joined Trinity Community Ministries as development director where she secured funding from a variety of sources to support men transitioning to independent living after recovering from substance misuse.

After leaving that position in 2006, she decided to pursue a longtime desire of working for herself as a nonprofit fundraising trainer, coach and consultant. She worked with Folade Na Weusi African Dance group, Strength Through Faith Community Center, Women Helping Women, Inc., Sights and Sounds Cultural Expo and Side by Side Brain Injury Clubhouse.

It was tough sustaining herself doing that exclusively, so she ventured into nonprofit management and in 2010 was named executive director of the Georgia Citizens' Coalition on Hunger, an organization coordinating a cadre of more than 100 state affiliates advocating political power and economic resources for underserved and disadvantaged communities.

Her mother later fell ill and, after caring for her until her passing, Dianne began her third career in community engagement and strategic planning. She became an AmeriCorps VISTA with the DeKalb County (Georgia) Board of Health, where she convened a coalition of community organizations, concerned citizens and government agencies to develop solutions to reducing youth violence. She accepted a position on-staff to coordinate their mobile farmers market, convene a workgroup to increase patient participation at their Men’s Health Clinic and facilitate a portion of their Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) effort, a community-driven strategic planning process for improving community health.

Armed with her extensive experience and knowledge Dianne is rededicating her time and talents to teaching fundraising through a framework she created call Rooted Yeomen Build Bridges or RYB, and coaching on personal development through a framework that facilitates sustained levels of high performance.

Why?

Because she suffered some tough blows during her nonprofit employment, largely because a lot of the leaders didn’t know how to position their people and in turn their organizations for success.

She had an epiphany of sorts in the mid-2010’s that led her to develop an approach to fundraising training that acknowledged that even the smallest of organizations needed to foster a culture of philanthropy; that their leadership should share the responsibility for fundraising tasks and fully integrate their development directors in fundraising decision-making, and that fundraising processes that are well-funded, comprehensive and measurable are requirements, not options.

Knowing nonprofit leaders need special support, Dianne became certified in high performance coaching so she could help them individually and benefit their organizations exponentially. By no means does she coach them exclusively; the framework is ideal for anyone seeking to achieve high levels of joy, confidence and engagement in their lives.

Dianne has been featured in VoyageATL, and was a guest on Life Harmony Radio’s “Nonprofits: From Striving to Thriving”, and the Selling Made Easy podcast with Wendy Vaughn.

People often say they recommend Dianne as a fundraising trainer and a certified high performance coach because she’s professional, creative, solutions-oriented, detailed and thorough, knowledgeable, “cool, calm and collected”, and has a wise and calm spirit.

Always in search of balance, Dianne is a mother, grandmother, and healthful living enthusiast who finds her bliss through the practices of yoga and meditation, running, strength training, and pescetarianism (she’s an island girl--life without seafood? NAH me’son!).   Daily journaling helps keep her life in perspective because “I have to have written proof of my experiences since I can hardly believe them myself!”