Senior Staff

Heléne Clark, Ph.D., Founder and Director
An urban geographer and environmental psychologist, Heléne Clark works with organizations engaged in social change to build their capacity to develop clear goals, gather knowledge about results, and expand the impact of critical social interventions.  Dr. Clark and Robert Engle founded ActKnowledge to provide rigorous research, planning and organizational development skills to the social sector. She has been the lead evaluator on numerous initiatives and served as advisor to many other evaluations around the U.S.  She incorporated the “Theory of Change” methodology into ActKnowledge’s work, and has led ActKnowledge to be the pre-eminent developer, facilitator and trainer of this method.  Her international work includes the development of not-for-profit organizations in Moscow, social housing in Brazil and various projects in the United Kingdom.  Heléne has served on the Board of Directors of Housing Conservation Coordinators in New York City for eight years. Prior to founding ActKnowledge, Dr. Clark was Associate Director of the Center for Human Environments, and taught courses in urban and economic geography, environmental psychology, housing policy and research methods.  She has published widely on housing and community development policy topics, as well as education and youth development.

Connie White, Executive Administrator
With more than 20 years of varied experience in “creating order out of chaos,” Connie White has been maintaining order at ActKnowledge almost since its inception in October 2000. Ms. White performs a variety of administrative duties associated with ActKnowledge’s day-to-day operations, provides support for all staff members, and manages the company’s finances, payroll, and employee benefits. Connie created and manages our Internship program, serving as mentor to fortunate high school students.  She also provides technical support on computer software applications.  In her previous experience Ms. White served as Director of Operations at a software development firm and held various administrative positions in the popular music industry including a substantial term as minister-without-portfolio at CBGB, the famous downtown Manhattan rock music venue.

Connie has just moved to San Francisco after getting married at the end of 2009.  Many of you remember her as Connie Hall!

Although in SF, Connie will continue her work for ActKnowledge, except for keeping the plants watered, which has been turned over to someone else.

Dana H. Taplin, Ph.D., Managing Director
Dana Taplin, an urban planner and environmental psychologist, brings an interest in applied social research to ActKnowledge’s practice in Theory of Change.  Dr. Taplin’s research interest is in parks and other public community spaces as human environments. He is working to expand ActKnowledge’s practice into research on public space and environment and is currently directing an evaluative study of schoolyard playgrounds for the Trust for Public Land’s New York City Playgrounds program.  In 2007-08, Dr. Taplin played a key role for ActKnowledge in developing a Theory of Change for Lumina Foundation for Education's work in the higher education sector.  This project involved building a Theory of Change as a forward planning model and helping the Foundation operationalize the TOC by organizing its work around outcomes.  Dana is skilled in the use of ethnographic research methods to understand how culture, social relations, and experiential values may be embodied in physical space.  His previous research includes an ethnographic overview and assessment of the Fire Island, N.Y., National Seashore, and a community impact study of Battery Park City in Manhattan ten months after the attacks of 9/11/01.  Dr. Taplin is second author, with Setha Low and Suzanne Scheld, of Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity, published in November 2005 by the University of Texas Press.  Dr. Taplin is an Adjunct Associate Professor in environmental studies at Pace University and also taught for several years in the Interior Design program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

Al Reynolds, Associate Director

The newest member of our ActKnowledge family, Al Reynolds brings more than ten years of experience in collecting, managing and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data in the areas of youth, community development, and employment programs. Al has provided technical assistance to numerous community-based organizations and foundations in building their evaluation capacity. These organizations include Fresh Youth Initiatives, Oasis Corporation, New York Women’s Foundation and the Robert Bowne Foundation. In addition to his data generation and collection expertise, Al has substantial skills in training and facilitating groups in research methods and data management, also in internal project planning and budgeting. We are fortunate to have him!

Julie Poncelet, Research Associate

A doctoral student completing her Ph.D. in the Built Environment Program at the University of Washington, Julie’s research focuses on youth activism in the urban built environment. As an ActKnowledge research associate, Julie supports ongoing evaluation of middle-school youth development programs in New York City. She helps with the development and implementation of research tools, conducts background research on youth outcome measures, and supports ActKnowledge staff with research and data analysis. From 2002 to 2005, Julie was a City Planner with the Strategic Planning and Policy Division of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. During that time, she was also an adjunct faculty at Temple University’s Department of Geography and Urban Studies. Ms. Poncelet has a Master of Science in Planning from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Art in Urban Geography from the University of British Columbia. She lives in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood with her husband Frank Donnelly, a geo-spatial librarian at Baruch College, CUNY.

Lynne Montague-Clouse

Lynne is new to ActKnowledge as a part of our team, but worked with us as a client when we helped the United Way of Transylvania County in North Carolina develop their Theory of Change.  Inspired by the community effort at the United Way and the TOC process, Lynne has joined ActKnowledge to bring her private sector experience and business sense to our marketing and outreach. Having experienced Theory of Change work first-hand, she will also be a valuable member of our TOC team.

Currently located in North Carolina, Lynne will be relocating to Denver in 2010, and opening our first U.S. office outside NY.

College Interns

Andrea Green

Andrea, who came to ActKnowledge in fall 2008, is learning skills and earning some money for college. She is currently a City College student, and has bravely taken on many tasks since Connie's move to the west coast.

Frequent Collaborators

Kim Sabo Flores, Ph.D, is a seasoned evaluation consultant who has developed innovative methods of involving multiple stakeholders in participatory evaluation and research processes. She provides evaluation, strategic planning and technical assistance to numerous foundations and consortia of funders, working with them to build systems to monitor their impacts over time and to develop capacity building strategies for their grantees. Among the funders she has worked with to maximize their progress toward meeting their mission are The Robert Bowne Foundation, Episcopal Charities, The Cricket Island Foundation, The New York Women’s Foundation, The Bruner Foundation, The US Diana Princess of Wales Fund, The New Jersey Department of Human Services, and the Rochester (NY) Effectiveness Partnership (REP), a collaborative of thirty-two provider agencies and twelve funders.

Catherine Borgman-Arboleda

Catherine, a co-founder and prior Executive Co-Director of the Center for International Media Assistance, currently helps CIMA with evaluation and assessment services. Catherine is working with ActKnowledge on an evaluation for the Media Justice Fund.  Most recently she collaborated with Heléne Clark in writing Process is Powerful: Planning and Evaluation for Media Activists (see ActKnowledge homepage.)  Catherine completed a three-part assessment of the Knowledge Exchange, a pilot project of the Funding Exchange and Consumers' Union, which aimed to connect national media and communications policy work with local organizing efforts. Catherine's other consulting work has included a formative evaluation of the Social Science Research Council's Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere, a strategic assessment of the Progressive Technology Project's VOTER project, and a report on knowledge sharing effective practice in NGOs and networks for UNDP Vietnam, to inform the development of the country's first umbrella NGO, and an evaluation and strategic planning process for the Funding Exchange's Media Justice Fund.
Catherine can be reached at cborgman.arboleda@gmail.com