Nancy McDonald

Nancy has worked in international development for the past 15 years, leading large teams and designing community-led programming. She has designed strategies to secure funding from foundations, corporate, and USG donors (including Department of State, DoD, and MCC) with over $100 million in wins as lead writer. 

Nancy is a practitioner in Positive Youth Development and has led youth assessment trips in in Africa (Ghana and Kenya), Asia (Pakistan and Sri Lanka), Eastern Europe (Kosovo and Ukraine), Latin America and the Caribbean (Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua), and the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, West Bank and Gaza). 

Programmatically, she has promoted the integration and implementation of Safeguarding, Do No Harm, and Trauma-informed approaches in new and existing programming – and supervised cross-functional teams (10 in DC and 100 globally) with a commitment to supporting professional opportunities for staff development, exchanges, and advancement.  She has personally designed and managed complex positive youth development and violence prevention programs worth over $135 million and co-chaired Alliance for Peacebuilding’s preventing violent extremism working group. Nancy holds a BA in Political Science from Trinity College and a MA in International Affairs from Boston University.