Senior Consultant

Ava Willis-Barksdale

Ava Willis-Barksdale is a seasoned professional whose career spans over thirty years of success in education, healthcare, fundraising/campaign support, and organizational leadership. She has concentrated her work in the areas of program and team building, human resource development and management, and strategic planning and implementation.

Ava has been recognized for creating strong mentor/mentee relations while still focusing the entire staff or organization on strategies needed to move forward.

Currently, Ava serves as director of corporate and foundation relations at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA. Previously, she served as the Vice President and Director of Human Resources at Girard College, a small but historic independent school, serving grades one through twelve, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Prior to the ten years at the independent school, Ava worked in Institutional Advancement in healthcare and education including Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia, PA), Loyola University Medical Center (Chicago, IL), and Earlham College (Richmond, IN).

She started her career in Medical Technology and taught chemistry at her undergraduate alma mater – Oakwood University (Huntsville, AL). She later ran academic and enrichment programs at Quillen School of Medicine, East Tennessee State University (Johnson City,TN) and at Ohio University (Athens, OH).

Ava has a talent for combining teaching and leadership with mentoring the people in her employ. She has excelled in Advancement Operations, and the management of fundraising processes including: campaign planning and management, alumni relations, advancement services, donor research, donor acquisition and retention, event planning and stewardship.

During her tenure at Loyola, she was an inaugural fellow in the Minority Advancement Institute of CASE. She also served on the board of a non-profit entity in Chicago serving women in need called Bottomless Closet.

Ava continues to lend her support to organizations in her current community of Philadelphia by serving on the boards of the West Oak Lane Charter School and the North Philadelphia Community Service Corporation. Every now and again, you will catch Ava singing in her church choir.

Ava is married to Byron Barksdale and they have three adult children and three grandchildren.

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