History
We founded BE Development Partners to bridge gaps we’ve seen in our over twenty years of work with missional nonprofit organizations. Many organizations are ill-equipped to deal with future trends and market demands. With limited resources to redesign organizational culture and practices, many in the nonprofit space are not diversifying their leadership teams and program design as fast as donor requirements and future workforce will require. Organizations are forced to respond to external pressures with the speed of innovations akin to startups, while their internal cultures remain entrenched in old-paradigm leadership, practices and policies that fail to take into account what is needed for greatest missional impact and the work/life needs and desires of the new, millennial workforce.
Beth Birmingham and Eeva Sallinen Simard have worked together for several years to create trainings and development to develop the kinds of leaders required of cultivating Cultures of Belonging, a radically different way than what is practiced in organizations today. We believe that nonprofit leaders trained in this intersection of “skillful hands and a servants heart” are those who will be able to navigate in future landscape for missional nonprofits. We also bring to the table our excellence in research and evaluation to serve your organizations needs.
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Beth Birmingham
Beth Birmingham is an NGO leadership and organizational consultant, development researcher, trainer, and former tenured professor (Eastern University). She’s brings knowledge and experience in leadership and change, an understanding of the complexity of poverty, and appreciation for the beauty of different cultures, to help humanitarian organizations improve their leadership, organizational culture, partnership posture and ultimately their missional impact. She’s conducted research and developed strategy to cultivate cultures of belonging for an INGO, has conducted field research on women and housing for Habitat for Humanity, and a program evaluation for Women in Leadership for World Vision. In the past she’s managed, researched and written on cross-sector partnerships, and has an upcoming book with InterVarsity Press on Creating Cultures of Belonging: Women and Men Leading Together in Missional Organizations (2021 release). She’s lived and served in over 20 countries. When she’s not working with clients, she is teaching in Eastern University’s Ph.D. program and serving as a member of Wheaton’s Consortium on Gender, Development and Christianity. She’s trained in Gender Mainstreaming (policy and analysis), is certified in Human Centered Design, and holds a Ph.D. in Leadership and Change, and MBA in Economic Development.
Partner
Eeva Sallinen Simard
Eeva Sallinen Simard has over ten years of experience working with missional NGOs from research to ministry. To her work she brings her passion to common sense decision-making, transparent communication and the empowerment of colleagues, especially helping women’s voices heard around tables where the most important decisions are made. Eeva has worked extensively in Africa and Europe, where she immigrated from nearly two decades ago. She is a co-convener of the Network on Gender, Development and Christianity at Wheaton College, a published author and a contributor to Mutuality Magazine. Eeva holds a MSc in International Politics and Communication from the University of Helsinki, and an MBA in Management from Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University.