Dr. Melissa Brown, CEO, Pathworks Business Development, Inc.

Melissa Brown, Ph.D., is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Pathworks Business Development, Inc. a management and grant writing firm assisting both non-profit and private sector executives.  She provides strategic planning and fund development coaching.   As the former Executive Director of the Nehemiah Community Foundation, Dr. Brown was co-founder of the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program that trains and develops a pipeline of exceptionally talented multicultural young adults for leadership positions and civic responsibility in their communities.

Prior to joining Nehemiah, Dr. Brown was the Assistant Superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District; the Executive Director of the Small School District Association; Program Director of the Foundation Consortium; Vice President of Finance and Administration of River West Developments, a real estate and land development corporation; West Coast Regional Director of the OAO Aerospace Engineering Corporation; Research Director of McFarlane Realty Advisors; and Executive Director of the YWCA of Sacramento.

Dr. Melissa Brown has significant fundraising experience spanning a 25 year period. She has led various fundraising campaigns starting with the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) in New York, where she led a national coalition called RAINS in raising over $25,000,000 for hunger and drought relief in Western Africa to the Sacramento City Unified School District where she raised over $50,000,000 in direct support of the district’s student support programs. Dr. Brown has been in charge of the fundraising efforts for private real estate firms and non-profit corporations working with various foundations, private investors and municipal agencies to create and implement viable funding proposals that secured over $500,000,000 from 1975-2010 for her employers and clients. She is a seasoned grant writer and researcher and is familiar with foundation, state and federal grant regulations and management requirements. Dr. Brown has a keen understanding of finance, creative budgeting, staffing, and donor cultivation. She possesses a tried – and – true set of core fundraising and grant writing competencies, built around collaboration and a constituent focus that aligns programmatic outcomes with funder objectives in targeted industries.

Dr. Brown earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Stanford University, her Master of Arts Degree in international affairs and economics from California State University, Sacramento, and her Ph. D. in educational economics from the University of California, Davis.