Mary Blanusa
Executive Director at Northern New Jersey Community Foundation
Mary is Executive Director at The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation (NNJCF). She brings with her extensive experience strategic planning, and program development & implementation in philanthropy and nonprofit fields. Prior to NNJCF, Mary was the Senior Director of Strategy at America Achieve, leading the design of education to workforce systems. Mary has been a Program Officer at The Helmsley Charitable Trust where she led policy, advocacy and communications grantmaking. She has led efforts at the state and national levels to build effective education advocacy coalitions in support of policies to improve equity, quality, and rigor in education. Mary served in a number of programmatic and leadership roles at the Council for Economic Education, most recently as Vice President of Government Relations and Partnerships. Mary has also worked internationally to advise ministries of education on design and implementation of academic standards and quality curriculum. She began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English and environmental education to middle school students in Hungary. Mary hold a Master’s degree from the Heller School of Public Policy at Brandeis University and a Bachelor’s degree from American University. Mary has extensive experience organizing local campaigns and running for and serving in elected office. She currently serves as Chair of the Advisory Board of the English Learners Success Forum.