Board and Committees

Gabrielle is the Director of Mission Impact at Spurwink, where she develops, funds, and raises visibility for behavioral health programs. She has provided strategic program and fund development for nonprofits for more than 20 years, raising nearly $35M for health, women and girls, economic development, racial justice, and youth. While at the YWCA USA, Gabrielle co-created YWCA TechGYRLS, a STEM program for girls in over 65 locations, and co-convened the First National Girls Conference at the UN. A graduate of Oberlin College, she is committed to social change efforts that address gender equity, racial justice, and the arts. She is currently on the board of Engine, an arts and creative economy organization in Biddeford, and served as Board Chair of Platform Shoes Forum, a nonprofit that developed online learning platforms and communities for girls. When she moved to Maine 15 years ago she found a community of women that inspired her in the New Girls Network at the Maine Women’s Fund. She lives in Saco with her husband and son.

Candace is a retired nephrologist. She received her AB summa cum laude from Smith College and her medical degree from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is past president of the Maine Nephrology Society, and former board member of the Renal Physicians Association. She served as Chief of Medicine at Central Maine Medical Center from 1992-1996. This spring, Candace was blessed with her first 2 grandchildren (Mainers-girl and boy). This is her best job ever.

When I was a child, I started spending time in the Blue Hill area, and permanently moving to Maine quickly became my dream.  I deeply love this state and feel fortunate to now call it my home.  While I live in Maine, I work remotely for MIT, where I co-founded and lead the Inclusive Innovation Challenge (IIC), the flagship program at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.  The IIC is a global award program for entrepreneurial organizations that use technology to increase economic opportunity for workers around the world and reinvent the future of work.  My job enables me to positively impact mission-driven organizations around the world and to ensure that fewer people are left behind economically as digital technology races ahead. 

I feel particularly strongly about the Maine Women’s Fund’s mission to transform the lives of women and girls.  My feminist parents brought my two sisters and me up to be resilient and independent.  While I was taught that I could do “anything a boy can do”, we still have a long way to go before all girls know this to be true and before it is indeed possible.  

Mary holds a BA from Smith College and MA from the University of Southern Maine in Public Policy and Management. She has served as the Representative to the Maine Legislature for District 112, which includes Falmouth. She is past president of the board of Portland Symphony Orchestra, Choral Arts Society, Osher Library, Friends of the USM School of Music and Maine College of Art, and has served on the board of the Maine Municipal Association and is a corporator of Maine Medical Center.

Lanette Pottle, founder of Positivity Lady Enterprises, is a life and business strategist who specializes in helping entrepreneurial women increase their impact and grow their bottom line without sacrificing their personal well-being in the process. A writer with a global appeal, Lanette has two published books.  She is a co-author of the Amazon #1 International best-seller, Success University for Women in Leadership and author of, Small Steps Big Impact: A Year of Simple Actions to Transform Your Life. Lanette is a graduate of Washington County Leadership Institute and a past advisor with Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute. She and her husband live in the beautiful Washington County town of Robbinston, an eighth of a mile from her childhood home.

Dani M. Scherer is an educator, curriculum developer and language and literacy acquisition specialist. She is passionate about the role that education plays in creating equitable communities. She currently serves as the project coordinator and curriculum developer for the Educator Diversity Initiative in Lewiston. Previously, she co-coordinated the Institute for Social and Economic Development’s national initiative - developing specialized resources and adult education tools for educationally and linguistically diverse farmers. As an independent consultant, she develops curricula and programs with the immigrant and refugee community in Maine, and provides trainings and consultation on curriculum development with projects across the state and country. She holds a BA in English and American Studies from Bates College, and an M.Ed. in Teacher Education and Curriculum Design from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

A Chicago native born on the crossroads of working-class, Black and female, Shay Stewart-Bouley’s career since 1997 has focused on weaving these intersections into her daily life and professional work. Since the mid-1990s, Shay has worked in the non-profit sector, during the earlier years working primarily with marginalized groups in Chicago, including the homeless and women being exploited in sex work. In the early-2000s, Shay moved from her native Chicago to Maine and, as a Black woman living in one of the least diverse spaces in the United States, found herself writing regularly about race relations, social justice, and white supremacy in such publications at the Portland Phoenix (where she had a month column, “Diverse City” for more than a decade), the Portland Press Herald, the Journal Tribune, and DigPortland. It was also in Maine that her work shifted to non-profit administration, working both as an executive director at a small faith-based non-profit in Southern Maine and non-profit consultant/grant-writer to other organizations, then later becoming executive director of the oldest continuously operating anti-racism organization in the nation, Community Change Inc. (based in Boston), where she still works today, though she continues to reside in Maine.

Shay is a prolific blogger at her award-winning website/blog Black Girl in Maine Media, where race is a major theme but also other social and political issues, as well as sometimes just commentary on daily life as a Black, middle-aged woman in a world where these traits frequently are not valued. Shay’s writing also has been featured in a variety of national publications as well as several anthologies. In November 2016, she gave a TEDx talked entitled “Inequity, Injustice… Infection.”

Shay holds an undergraduate degree from DePaul University, where she self-designed a program to focus on African-American Health and Wellness and health disparities; she also holds masters of education degree in Administration and Supervision from Antioch University New England.