Yolanda Coentro
Yolanda is the President and CEO of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice where she is leading efforts to deepen programmatic quality and scale the organization nationally. Under her leadership, the organization has rebranded, completed a strategic plan, tripled its assets, launched in 3 new markets and has been positioned as a key driver in equity and inclusion work in the nonprofit sector regionally.
Prior to the Institute, Yolanda was the Chief Operating Officer at Horizons for Homeless Children. She also served as the Vice President for Programs at YWBoston. From very early on in her career, she has focused her efforts on eliminating disparities, talent development and equity and inclusion work. Yolanda led efforts to develop a plan for building a pipeline of trained and diverse community mental health workers for the Massachusetts Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI). She chaired the Health Disparities Committee for the CBHI Advisory Council, is an Overseer at the Boston Children’s Museum and has served on a number of advisory and nonprofit boards. Yolanda began her career in community organizing, training organizers statewide on economic justice issues. She currently serves on the Public Policy Committee of Independent Sector in Washington, DC.
A 2017 Social Innovation Forum ‘Social Innovator,’ Yolanda was recently featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of 15 More People Changing the Nonprofit World, is a 2018 recipient of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s TOYL (Ten Outstanding Young Leaders Awards) and has been featured in a number of publications including the Boston Globe, Social Innovations Journal and Boston Voyager. She is a graduate of Boston College, has a Master’s in Social Work and is an alum of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice.