Frances Kunreuther served as Executive Director of HMI from 1991 to 1998. In response to the training HMI provides educators that focus on teacher and student prejudices and strategies to support gay and lesbian youth, she once said “Our biggest enemy is ignorance—a lot of teachers have never met a gay person and have no training on this population. Telling a gay youth ‘it’s a phase you’re going through’ reinforces the isolation that plagues gay students. I can’t emphasize how much one accepting voice can change a youngster’s life.”
Prior to HMI, Frances held the post of Director for the Victim Services Agency, a New York City agency created to help victims of crime get the services they require both in the criminal justice system and in rehabilitative therapy. Today, Frances is Co-Executive Director at the Building Movement Project, which started while she was a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
Frances has co-authored two books, From the Ground Up: Grassroots Organizations Making Social Change and Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership, as well as several reports on generational change in leadership and has been featured in a various publications.
Over the years, Frances has worked with homeless youth and families, undocumented immigrants, crime victims, battered women, survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault and substance users. In 1997, she was a recipient of an Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellowship.
Frances is a Fellow at the Research Center for Leadership in Action at NYU, and she writes and presents frequently on issues related to nonprofits, leadership and social change.
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