Carol Carpenter

ccarpenter@impactstrategiesllc.com

Carol Carpenter is a recognized non-profit community and economic developer with 24 years experience designing and securing funding for creative change-the-world endeavors.   As a partner in Impact Strategies, she leads the agency’s non-profit and government consulting efforts.
In the field of grant writing, Carol’s 90%+ success rate places her in a category all by herself.  In the past 10 years alone, she has raised more than $175 million for non-profit and government clients to implement direct services.  She has designed a wide variety of impactful programs and projects in response to some of the nation’s most critical needs, and has developed policies and practices resulting in wide scale change at the local, state and national levels. 

Her fund development track record covers a broad range of topics and funding sources.  In the area of economic and downtown redevelopment, she has assisted city governments in securing Enterprise Zone, Empowerment Zone and Brownfield designations, as well as designing large-scale economic and downtown re-development projects funded through complex private-public partnership.  She harnessed the resources of more than 120 businesses to create a $2 million business improvement district and successfully wrote and secured passage of southern Arizona’s largest tax increment financing legislation resulting in $300 million in available resources for Tucson, Arizona’s downtown redevelopment.  Over her career, she has designed and packaged urban housing, façade improvement and mixed use projects that have transformed downtown landscapes while protecting natural and cultural resources and local business interests. 

For the past nine years, she has focused on bringing government and foundation resources to bear at the community level.  She assisted a large, Tucson-based non-profit organization in increasing its fully grant funded budget by 200% over 4 years.  She worked to create a social entrepreneurship venture within the agency that increased the capacity of governments and non-profits throughout the U.S. and its territories by providing and teaching successful grant writing, research and evaluation and public policy and training at non-profit rates.  Her work has spanned all topics and all funding streams, from small foundation grants to multi-year research projects. 

As the consummate translator, Carol works seamlessly between the often siloed entities of non-profit, for-profit, government and academics to design initiatives that meet mutual goals and objectives.  Her deep understanding of the need for evidence-based practice and cultural competence has ensured clients get the product they need to be funded, sustainable and replicable.

Over the years, she has moved the policy agenda by developing concept papers, legislation and programs that have assisted in shedding a national spotlight on such varied and pressing issues as support for children of prisoners; systems of care for underserved populations; renewable energy; restorative justice; employment barriers for persons with disabilities, and health care disparities among minority populations.  Her particular interest in working with indigenous populations has played out in her success in assisting Native American tribes and Pacific Island communities in securing major funding and garnering new support and interest on key issues from U.S. policymakers. 

Her early work in grassroots community development and public policy in Southeast DC and on Capitol Hill in gave her a clear sense of how different agendas can be aligned when smart and committed people are brought together to communicate on a common issue.  Her skills in strategic planning and facilitation have assisted grassroots coalitions, government agencies, non-profit boards and Governor-appointed Commissions in developing and executing achievable and sustainable agendas.  

Carol has bachelor degree in Journalism from the University of Arizona; attended Tulane University in New Orleans, LA; and is a graduate of the American Politics and Public Affairs program at Georgetown University.