Judith Cawhorn
Executive Director of Grant Development
(810) 762-0597

Judith Cawhorn is the Executive Director of Grant Development at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan. Prior to that she was the Director of Development for Nonprofit Enterprise at Work in Ann Arbor, Michigan. NEW is an incubation center housing 18 small and mid-sized arts, human service, environmental and other types of not-for-profit organizations. The NEW Managing for Nonprofit Excellence workshop series offers technical assistance on a variety of not-for-profit management and leadership issues.

For the seven years preceding her move to NEW, Judith was Development and Community Relations Director for SOS Community Crisis Center. SOS provides services to individuals and families facing emotional and economic crisis including homelessness. While at SOS, she secured funding for several innovative programs including a homelessness prevention program, an affirmative action volunteer initiative and the "Care and Share" program to strengthen the partnership between businesses and the nonprofit sector.

Judith served for seven years, four of those as Chair, on the Flint Women and Girls Fund, a fund within the Community Foundation of Greater Flint. Judith was a founding board member and President of the Ann Arbor Community Development Corporation. During her tenure, the organization developed the Women's Initiative in Self-Employment (WISE), a program designed to recognize and support entrepreneurial ideas of low-income women. WISE provides business management seminars, technical assistance and a loan fund for business start-up. Judith has served as a board member and fundraising committee chairperson of several other non-for-profits including Migrant Health Promotion, a national peer health education and advocacy program designed to empower farmworkers; and, as Chair for the Fundraising Committee of Women Build!, an affiliate program of Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley. She is currently serving on the Board of Packard Clinic, a non-profit community clinic in Washtenaw County.

From 1981-1988, Judith was Consumer Services Manager for the Michigan Federation of Food Cooperatives, a consumer owned cooperative food wholesaler serving 20 retail outlets and 150 buying clubs with a sales volume of seven million at the height of its success. While at the Federation, she represented food cooperatives on the board of the Michigan Alliance of Cooperatives (MAC), a state level organization composed of agricultural cooperatives, consumer cooperatives, worker-owned cooperatives, and credit unions from around the state. As a board member of MAC, Judith worked as an advisor on the development of a public school curriculum designed to teach the cooperative form of business to middle school age students.

As a life-long community volunteer, Judith is interested in enhancing and increasing the role of volunteerism as a way of addressing community needs and as a method of learning. In 1994, she served on the President's Task Force on Community Service at the University of Michigan. One of the results of the task force was the establishment of a Center for Learning Through Community Services on the University campus. Judith has taught a number of workshops and seminars on not-for-profit management issues including fundraising, board roles and responsibilities, human resource issues, and strategic planning.