Amy Belanger is a social change agent and entrepreneur with 25 years experience in nonprofit leadership and socially responsible business development and a special focus on marketing communications. She is also an award-winning journalist, essayist, and fiction writer, with publications in newspapers, magazines, and books.

Amy found her calling when a toxic waste company campaigned to site a toxic waste facility above the main aquifer feeding her hometown. She and colleagues launched a grassroots campaign that defeated the company’s proposal. Since then, she has campaigned for social justice and environmental sustainability throughout the U.S. She directed Student Environmental Action Coalition and ran the headquarters of the Green Party USA before returning to her hometown to organize the successful campaign against offshore drilling in the federal and state waters off Florida’s coast. She raised $1.5 million to launch and expand the 6-state Great Forest campaign of Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition. Most recently, she served as Deputy Director of Green America’s Green Business Network, where she launched new programs to help green businesses survive and thrive in the new economy.

Idealist Marketing launched in 2002 as a marketing consultancy for socially responsible businesses and nonprofits. Clients have included Ralph Nader, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions, Green America, Natural Innovation, Arizona Green Building Expo, Gentle Strength Cooperative, Terra Sante Ecovillage, and many more. 

Expertise: Marketing, Copywriting, Fundraising, Political Campaigns, Nonprofit Consulting
Current projects: www.greenbusinessnetwork.org, www.greenamericatoday.org, www.gogreennation.org

Mitra Ardon is a serial entrepreneur with twenty-five years experience creating non-profits and green businesses. Working at the intersections of sustainability, community and technology, Mitra provides business development and consulting to companies working in sustainability, especially those developing new, clean technologies.

In 1985, Mitra founded GreenNet and co-founded the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the earliest pre-Internet online systems connecting the sustainability community. Through his various consultancies in the 80’s, he contributed to the creation of the Internet, including many of the standards we use today, such as http, url, and vrml.

He is founder and CEO of Natural Innovation, a management consulting firm specializing in sustainable technologies and communications technologies for the sustainability arena. His business development projects included Australia’s fastest growing solar company, where he generated $10M in first-year sales by pioneering community purchasing aggregation to make solar affordable; Natures Child Wholesale, creating natural and organic products for babies and young children; and Papyrus Australia, where he served as CEO of a startup, making paper from banana trees, using no chemicals, no water and minimal power; Mitra has extensive international experience including managing teams in India and Russia.

Mitra is currently creating a non-profit that will develop promising clean-energy and emission-reducing technologies by partnering with pro-bono engineering and business support; philanthropic and patient capital; and development and aid organizations.

Expertise: Business Development, Startups, Clean-technology, Creative Business Models
Current projects: www.naturalinnovation.org, www.mitra.biz.org

Doug Hammond began his 30-year entrepreneurial career in corporate social responsibility and social enterprise at age twenty-three when he founded Relief Resources on 1979. It was the first mission-driven sustainable business in the United States designed to provide strategic staffing support to community based organizations. The unique social enterprise provided employment pathways for more than 10,000 individuals and was nationally recognized for its key contributions and leadership in the not for profit industry.

His business advocacy leadership history includes New England Business for Social Responsibility, founding member of the national Business for Social Responsibility, long time member of the Social Venture Network where he co-authored the New Corporate Vision Project. As a co-founding member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) he served from 2001 to 2009 in a number of board leadership roles and most recently as Executive Director until June 2009. In July 2009 he launched ALIVE Communities, a collaborative which fosters the creation of local living economies, both domestic and international, through the integration of economic anthropology based principles and sustainable business practices. This summer he also joined the executive leadership team of the American Sustainable Business Council, a national coalition of mission-driven businesses, social enterprises, and sustainable business networks working to create a just and sustainable economy. His consultation to not-for-profits, businesses, schools and communities includes organizational design, community economic development, human resources, marketing and revenue enhancement strategies.

Expertise: Organizational Design, Sustainable Community Economic Development, Fundraising Strategy, Nonprofit Consulting, Community Development
Current projects: www.alivecommunities.net, www.asbcouncil.org, www.svn.org

Trish Riley is author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Greening Your Business (with Heather Gadonniex, Alpha Books/Penguin 2009) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living (Alpha Books 2007). She is an award winning investigative reporter who has specialized in environmental journalism for 17 years. Her work has been published in major newspapers, national and international magazines and custom publications. She is a board member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Trish is creator of GoGreenGift.com, the home of the “eco-starter kit,” and GoGreenNation.org, a green communities networking project. Trish, her books and GoGreenGift have been featured in The Washington Post, The National Geographic Green Guide, Cooking with Paula Deen, E/The Environmental Magazine, The Miami Herald, and many other publications. Trish has been invited to speak about green topics in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, Little Rock, Miami and beyond.

Expertise: Copywriting, Editing, Publishing, Speaker on Green Living and Green Economy Themes
Current projects: www.gogreengifts.com, www.gogreennation.org

Dr. Laura Mamo and Dr. Jennifer Fosket are co-directors and founders of Social Green, a non-profit organization that uses sociological tools to improve green projects. Drs Mamo and Fosket are both professional Sociologists with over fifteen years of experience studying human interaction and behavior. As experts on the intersections of health, environmental and social problems, they have served as consultants to industry, non-profit organizations and have conducted numerous funded research projects.

Through Social Green, Dr. Mamo and Dr. Fosket consult with developers, designers, project managers and others to improve the performance of their buildings, communities or other projects by focusing on the social side of sustainability. They can:

Maximize the human side of green buildings at all phases of development.
Help you anticipate how people will use your space, identify barriers that may exist to full use of sustainability features and help you strategize solutions to these barriers.
Help translate your ideas and plans to interested communities and help forge connections between the design process and end users.

Expertise: Social sustainability consulting
Current Projects: www.socialgreen.com