Not-for-Profit Organizations Conference (IN-PERSON)

Jeffrey Mechanick

Jeff Mechanick is Senior Project Advisor for Not-for-Profit Organizations at the FASB. In that role, he provides organization-wide technical and strategic advice on standard-setting activities affecting the not-for-profit sector, guides and facilitates stakeholder outreach with the sector, chairs the FASB’s Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee, and participates in some of the FASB’s broader educational activities. He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the International Financial Reporting for Nonprofit Organizations initiative (#IFR4NPO).

Prior to joining the FASB staff in 2006, Jeff spent 20 years working in and with the not-for-profit sector, as the CFO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., and before that, as a Senior Manager with KPMG, LLP, in the firm’s New York office. From 1992 to 1994, he served as the National Technical Senior Manager for the firm’s Higher Education, Research, and Other Not-for-Profit Organizations (HERON) practice. He is also a past member of the AICPA’s NFP Expert Panel. Jeff received his MBA from Rutgers University and his AB from the University of Chicago, and he is a member of the AICPA and the New York State Society of CPAs. He is also an adjunct instructor in Columbia University’s MS degree program in Nonprofit Management.

Mary-Evelyn Antonetti

Mary Antonetti is a partner in the Firm’s New Haven office, specializing in tax compliance and consulting services for not-for-profit and healthcare organizations. She has 30 years of public accounting experience with national and international firms. Her extensive experience includes for healthcare and other tax-exempt organizations and their for-profit affiliates, including higher education institutions, NGOs, hospital systems, title holding companies, Official Catholic Directory entities, and private foundations.

Mary’s skillset includes consulting on the implications of tax reform, unrelated business income, alternative investments, foreign reporting, joint venture transactions, Section 501(r) of the Internal Revenue Code, restructuring, application for exempt status, IRS audit support, community benefit reporting, Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA), tax-exempt bonds, HHS Provider Relief Funds, CARES Act, and private inurement issues.

She also has experience providing middle-market companies with general tax compliance and planning services focused on corporate acquisitions, dispositions, and reorganizations of entity structure, including consolidated groups, S-Corporations, and multi-tiered partnerships with domestic and foreign operations. Prior to joining Marcum, Mary served as a director with a Big Four firm located in Hartford.

Gian-Carl Casa

In July 2016 Gian-Carl Casa was selected as the first President and CEO of the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance (“The Alliance”), Connecticut’s statewide association of nonprofit organizations. He has led the effort to build The Alliance, so that it is now recognized as the voice of community nonprofits before the legislature, the state executive branch, the Congressional delegation and the media.

Before that he served for five and a half years as Undersecretary for Legislative Affairs at the state Office of Policy and Management. At OPM he was responsible for budget-related and other legislation, managed requests for state bond funding and was point person for public communications, working closely with the Governor’s office in all areas.

He also worked for over two decades at the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, most recently as Directory of Public Policy and Advocacy, where he worked on many association-related activities and helped build the organization’s grassroots lobbying capacity.

He has a BA and MA in Political Science from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He has otherwise always lived in Connecticut.

Elysa Gordon

Elysa joined the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving in 2011. She is a member of the Executive Leadership team, and her portfolio as Vice President, Community Impact, includes strategy development and oversight for all grantmaking, capacity building, learning and evaluation, partnerships, public policy, and HFPG Impact! Greater Hartford, the Foundation’s impact investing portfolio. Elysa’s career has focused on collaborative national and statewide efforts to advance opportunities for children and their families. Previously, as Assistant Child Advocate for the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate, Elysa shepherded reforms on behalf of youth in juvenile and adult prisons, residential treatment, and foster care. Elysa also served as Senior Policy Advisor for the New York State Chief Justice’s Commission on Justice for Children where she established and managed statewide court-based innovations to maximize the well-being of children in foster care and has held leadership positions at Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Bronx AIDS Consultation Services, providing services for individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

Karla Fortunato

Karla Fortunato is the president of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy and a champion for the philanthropic sector. She has decades of experience in philanthropy, funder collaboration, systems change, public policy, and organizational development.

Prior to joining the Council in 2017, Karla served as director of the Health and Environmental Funders Network (HEFN) where she mobilized philanthropy nationally around solutions to environmental health and justice problems. Before that, she led policy research, communications, and campaigns for Health Care For All, a Massachusetts-based advocacy group best known for the passage of the 2006 health care insurance reform law. She served on the Health Leadership Circle of MomentUs, a national campaign for climate change solutions, and as a member of the Serving Communities Committee of the National Conversation on Public Health and Chemical Exposures. She currently serves on the State of Connecticut’s ESF #14 Long-term Recovery Committee and as a board member of the Connecticut Community Nonprofit Alliance.

Karla Fortunato received her Bachelor of Arts from the Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Virginia and earned her Master of Business Administration from George Washington University. She writes regularly, and has been published in Health Affairs, the Connecticut Mirror, and other publications.

Jeffrey Ziplow

Jeff is a principal in the firm’s Business Risk Advisory service group. He has significant experience working with organizations to assess their IT security controls as they relate to business operations and helps to develop recommendations to mitigate risk. In this role, Jeff works with public and private organizations, municipalities and not-for-profits clients on cyber security risk assessments and provides insight and guidance on developing better operational and security practices. He also works with Attorney Generals from several states to provide guidance/support on cyber security matters.