The PM Podcast

Bridgette “Bri” Simpson — co-founder and executive director of Barred Business, which works to expand opportunity and legal protections for justice-impacted people. Bri studied finance and accounting and dreamed of building a financial services firm. Instead, she spent ten years incarcerated in Georgia. When she came home in 2018, she struggled to find work, experienced homelessness, and encountered barriers to employment, housing, and opportunity. Those experiences helped lead to the creation of Barred Business in 2020. Since then, its work has expanded into reentry, entrepreneurship, voting rights, civic engagement, and public policy. In 2022, Barred Business helped lead the successful campaign to add criminal-history status to Atlanta’s nondiscrimination protections — work that has since helped inspire similar efforts elsewhere. In this episode, Bri talks about incarceration, reentry, stigma, and what she calls the permanent punishments that can follow people long after a sentence ends — and how she turned those experiences into a fight for dignity, opportunity, and full participation in community life.

Jennice Fuentes is founder and CEO of BoricuActivatEd, a nonprofit that helps people understand government, find their voice, and become more effective advocates for themselves and their communities. Jennice was born and raised in Puerto Rico and spent 25 years working in the U.S. House of Representatives, eventually serving as chief of staff to Congressman Luis Gutiérrez. After leaving Capitol Hill in 2013, she founded Fuentes Strategies, a government relations and consulting firm providing advice to corporations, individuals, and nonprofits with interests before Congress, federal agencies, and the European Community. Along the way, Jennice also pursued another passion — acting — building a professional career that included appearances in Law & Order, Godless, and HBO’s K Street. Then, in September 2017, Hurricane Maria changed the course of her life. As Puerto Rico’s infrastructure collapsed and Jennice worried about family on the island, she heard a reporter say, “Without Congress, we are dead.” Jennice knew Congress. She knew how it worked. And she realized she could use that knowledge to help ordinary people understand the system, navigate it, and advocate for themselves. That realization became BoricuActivatEd. In this episode, we talk about Hurricane Maria, Jennice’s years on Capitol Hill, her parallel life as an actor, and what she has learned about power, civic engagement, advocacy, and helping people recognize — and exercise — the influence they already have.

Amari Duncan is director of philanthropic impact at Girls Inc. of the Greater Capital Region and one of AFP’s 2026 Outstanding Young Professionals.Although she entered the fundraising profession only four years ago, Amari has quickly built a record as a strategic, mission-centered, and community-rooted advancement leader. At United Way of the Greater Capital Region, she managed more than 40 corporate partnerships, helped rebuild Emerging Leaders United, and mobilized more than 1,500 volunteers across nine counties.Since joining Girls Inc. in 2023, she has led non-grant fundraising, modernized the advancement program, launched new signature events, and helped more than double philanthropic support. She is now helping lead Girls Inc.’s first capital campaign in more than 40 years.Amari also serves in a community leadership role with KIPP Capital Region and Albany Academy for Girls, where she became the youngest and first Black woman to serve as president of the Alumnae Council.Recorded live in the Exchange at AFP ICON 2026, this conversation explores Amari’s path from sports to fundraising, the role of mentorship, and how a winner’s mindset has set her on a course for success.

Birgit Smith Burton is a fundraising leader, advocate, author, and founder and CEO of the African American Development Officers Network.Birgit launched AADO at Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999 to create mentorship, professional development, and networking opportunities for fundraisers of color. During her 26-year career at Georgia Tech, she helped lead efforts that secured more than $700 million in foundation support for scholarships, research, and major initiatives.She also made history as the first African American woman elected chair of the global board of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Along the way, she has become one of the most respected voices in the profession on leadership, inclusion, mentorship, and the future of fundraising.Recorded live in the Exchange at AFP ICON 2026, this conversation explores Birgit’s journey, the evolution of AADO, leadership in philanthropy, and what it takes to build a more inclusive and equitable future for the sector.

Sharon Kitroser is a fundraising strategist, partnership builder, and nonprofit coach with a background that spans more than 25 years in media and advertising and another decade in fundraising and nonprofit leadership.Today, Sharon is the co-founder of Team Kat & Mouse, where she helps organizations grow fundraising revenue through coaching, storytelling, corporate partnerships, and practical fundraising strategy. Before that, she led partnership and development work for organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Gift of Life Marrow Registry.In this episode, our conversation ranges from Sharon’s family roots on the Lower East Side, Europe, and South Africa to living upstairs from the Marx Brothers, life in radio, corporate fundraising, mental health, shocking family secrets, and why both children—and clients—sometimes need the freedom to skin their knees and learn resilience and independence.

Anne Connelly is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and a leading voice in blockchain and cryptocurrency for social impact. Anne advises corporations, startups, and nonprofits worldwide, and teaches Blockchain-based Business Models for Social Impact at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. She is also an expert on decentralized societies at Singularity University and has lectured at Oxford’s Saïd School of Business on impact finance.Her work has taken her from boardrooms to the field, including with Doctors Without Borders in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is the co-author of Bitcoin and the Future of Fundraising and Trust, and has been recognized as one of CBC’s Young Leaders Changing Canada and among the Fifty Most Inspirational Women in Technology.In this episode, we trace her journey from Ottawa to Africa—where she carried a backpack full of cash to pay NGO staff and saw wheelbarrows of currency needed to buy a tomato—and how those experiences helped shape her belief in digital currency, technological solutions, and exponential thinking.

In this episode, we speak with Karen Isble—Vice President for College Advancement at Kalamazoo College. Karen previously served as Associate Vice Chancellor and Campaign Director at the University of California, Irvine, where she helped lead the university’s $2 billion Brilliant Future campaign. Before that, she held senior leadership roles at the University of Michigan, contributing to the university’s $5 billion+ Victors for Michigan campaign. She began her career in arts administration, with roles at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Goodman Theatre—and today serves as chair of the board of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. A former president of Apra, Karen has been a national voice in advancement for many years. We begin our conversation with a glimpse of where it all started—how her talking and singing as a child earned her the nickname “Radio” within the family, hinting early on at a life shaped by music and communication.

In this episode, we speak with Julie Castle—Chief Executive Officer of Best Friends Animal Society and a leading voice behind the national no-kill movement—about her remarkable journey from aspiring lawyer to one of the most influential leaders in animal welfare. Julie shares how a single visit to a sanctuary in Utah changed the course of her life, setting her on a path that would take her from cleaning kennels and answering phones to building one of the largest and most effective animal welfare networks in the country—and helping to drive a nationwide movement to end the killing of dogs and cats in shelters.