Mike Gilligan
Prior to entering the nonprofit sector in1999, my professional experiences were various and included three years of honorable military service and three years of owning and operating an independent record label. The latter afforded excellent, real-world experience in public relations and event planning. Two music festivals that I organized won Westword's "Best of Denver" Awards. Having achieved the rank of Sergeant (E-5) at the age of twenty, the former provided solid foundations of leadership and an opportunity to spend a year in South Korea.
In March of 2006, I began studies in Regis University’s Masters of Nonprofit Management program. Having completed more than two-thirds of the coursework there, I can say unreservedly that concentrated participation in the program is an outstanding experience for those interested in nonprofit leadership excellence. The opportunities for ongoing exchange of ideas with social-sector leaders and the improvement of my own public speaking abilities are perhaps the greatest professional developments that the MNM program has helped me to realize thus far in my career. My anticipated date of completion is April, 2008.
When, in August of 2004, the Food Bank of the Rockies assumed responsibility for the local administration of the USDA’s Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), my previous experience with the organization prompted a call for my return. I was welcomed back to the organization, first as Compliance Supervisor and later as the Manager of the CSFP program. In response to the Request for Proposals through the Colorado Department of Human Services, I was chosen to author a substantial portion of the enormous document and edit its entirety. I was also given primary responsibility to research, contact and build relationships with cooperating faith-based and secular human-service agencies that provide distribution sites for the Commodities Program. Seventeen such distribution sites and cooperative relationships exist today largely as a result of my work in this area. Since the first distribution in October, 2004, the program has provided well over 300,000 food packages to people in need. Although not able to utilize my strongest communications-oriented skill set to its full potential in this position, the experience has proven to be most valuable and formative in terms of leadership, capacity building and developing constructive alliances.
In May of 2002, prior to my involvement in CSFP, I helped to select and orient my successor and began a two-year intermission from employment at the Food Bank, but not a break from the organization’s mission. I maintained my relationships with the staff and volunteers at FBR by frequently volunteering there myself. During this time, I finished my BA in Arts & Humanities at Colorado State University, worked part-time as a real estate broker and designed websites – an endeavor that, while not especially lucrative for me, helped me to further hone my strongest skills of communications, writing and design.
My first job in Denver’s nonprofit community began in February of 1999 as an entry-level, temporary employee of the Food Bank of the Rockies. The match between the Food Bank’s mission and my sensibilities regarding social justice and working toward the common good proved to be exceptionally sound and I was quickly given the opportunity to manage Denver’s Table: a program that gathers excess prepared foods from restaurants and caterers and redistributes these donations to local shelters and meal-service programs sometimes known as soup kitchens. During the first year of my tenure at Denver’s Table, the program doubled the amount of food distributed.
My tenacity in researching, identifying, contacting and building relationships with key people in Denver’s food-service industry - who would become generous donors - was one notable factor in the growth of the program during this period. Effective outreach to human-service agencies and the ability to elicit enthusiasm from staff and volunteers regarding the underlying worthiness of the program’s mission could be said to be equally important to the capacity building of Denver’s Table.
I was born and raised in South St. Louis: the youngest of eight in a close-knit family. I enjoyed attending parochial schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I have visited Ireland several times to visit my father’s family and have also enjoyed traveling in England, France and Italy. I live with my wife Jennifer in the Denver’s Historic Baker Neighborhood. We were married in Florence, Italy. I am particularly interested in politics, music, art, history, film, modern literature, and sports.
