A FEW WORDS FROM SUSAN

I help non-profits deliver their mission in a contemporary format by working onsite alongside frontline staff reframing the work in ways that are innovative, efficient, marketable, and supportive which increases funding opportunities, attracts talent, and systemizes operations. The thing I love the most is using my passion, creativity, and cross-cultural competency skills to unearth the aspirations of all those I serve.

My overarching theme in everything I do is creativity. I view life and the work I do through a creative lens which makes me quite unique. I think David Brooks sums up best how I think. He says, “Think about the traits creative people possess. Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map. Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody knows, creative people move adaptively through wildernesses nobody knows.” [NY Times Commentary 2012; “How Competition Inhibits Creativity and Innovation.”]

I am who you turn to when you/your organization needs:

• To develop and lead the implementation of work plans, strategic plans, and project management systems
• To design and implement new programs and services
• To create an outcomes-based management system
• To write grants and proposals
• To reframe the work into ways that will attract additional key stakeholders and funders
• To design and implement a project

EXPERIENCE

Susan Wuscher brings a unique mix of domestic and international non-profit administration and direct service experience to her work. She began her career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya. Stationed in a rural village at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, she worked with women’s groups and local entrepreneurs in small business development. Ms. Wuscher went on to succeed in program management and executive leadership with The Salvation Army Family Service units in Phoenix, AZ and New York City and later returned to the Peace Corps overseeing recruitment in Manhattan then becoming the Administrative Officer of the New York Area Office.

In her most recent position as the Director of Community Life and Co-Site Director for The Community Builders, Inc., she directed the overall management of programming, family enrichment services, and community organizing for the mixed income HOPE VI property in Akron Ohio called Cascade Village (formerly known as Elizabeth Park – the oldest public housing project in the county). Ms. Wuscher provided strategic leadership for the site in implementing a new platform of supportive services for families that utilizes network-centric organizing theory to create a demand-driven environment and resident-led community.

Being an independent consultant has allowed Ms. Wuscher to focus her talent and passion in serving as a change agent to assist non-profit entities with innovative approaches to organizational and leadership structures and design new programs and services. She strives to help organizations change the system, create new initiatives and try new ideas. She is all about “paradigm shifts” – shifting from social service models to strength-based case management – from employment counseling to entrepreneurship – from charity to community development – from top-down management to bottom-up teams management. Most of her consulting work to date has been with inner city churches, neighborhood start-up organizations, and refugee organizations.

Ms. Wuscher holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, with a concentration in international non-profit management and international development, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Business & Communications from Grove City College.

Ms. Wuscher has a passion for international travel and living and over the last decade has had the opportunity to work in Mozambique, and visit such places as Madagascar, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Malaysia. From 2005-2008, she lived in Taiwan where she studied Chinese. She currently resides in Cuyahoga Falls with her daughter Ruby, who she adopted while living in Taiwan.