Senior Advisor
Denver, CO
Cindy Willard has been a Senior Advisor to the Impact Finance Center since 2015 when she supported the first Colorado Impact Days, and she now serves as a project advisor and collaborator. Cindy believes the power of relationships and the intentionality of capital will create a more equitable world, better aligning finance and opportunity. She has deep experience as a Colorado thought leader in philanthropic strategy, integrated capital, and program development. She began her career in corporate social responsibility at The Denver Post working at the nexus of journalism and community engagement. While building her own philanthropic advisory company, she has worked for private, corporate and community foundations. Through the Colorado Health Access Fund, Cindy was a lead investor in the first pay-for-success project in Colorado to expand access to behavioral health interventions to reduce youth recidivism. For the King Foundation, she develops a pipeline for program-related investments and grants that support education and capital for entrepreneurs. Working in capital activation for Impact Charitable, Cindy leads the development of integrated capital projects designed to flow funding and investments to people and places left out of traditional financial systems.
In her work, Cindy draws from her own community involvement having served on numerous boards and advisory councils including as Vice Chair of the Board for WorkLife Partnership, Board member for the Colorado Nonprofit Loan Fund and most recently as a Board Member for Vital Capital CDFI.
After graduating from the University of Kansas with distinction in journalism, she went on to earn a Master’s in Nonprofit Management degree from Regis University, where she also served as affiliate faculty in the Global Nonprofit Leadership department.