Our highly qualified team has over 50 years of collective experience in strategy and development.
Meet the Team and our Associates
Aileen Davidson - facilitation, community research and cross-cultural relations
Aileen's diverse experience has allowed her to develop excellent research skills and the ability to assemble data from a variety of sources for community research purposes, report writing, discussion papers, briefings and speech notes
Excellent facilitation skills allow Aileen to work with diverse groups of people, facilitating learning to meet specific needs, and assisting people with problem solving. Aileen has wide experience working in cross-cultural situations and is able to create different ways of imparting information as determined by the group context.
Additionally, Aileen has experience with both sides of funding arrangements and is able to negotiate funding for the best outcomes for all stakeholders.
Finally, Aileen can plan and coordinate any size of event from venue hire and registration through to final evaluation and report writing. Organisation of work flow, learning and facilitation resources, project/programme management and team responsibilities are just some of Aileen's additional skills.
Amanda Holdaway - events coordination, research and writing
Amanda is an experienced administrator with strong organisational skills and the ability to plan, prioritise and manage competing demands and workloads. She has successfully planned and managed a variety of events, e.g., forums, launches, workshops and can help your organisation arrange venue hire, furniture hire and catering to suit your budget.
Experienced in editing and proof-reading minutes, correspondence, policy documents and manuals, Amanda creates professional outputs demonstrating clarity of structure, attention to detail, appropriate style and a natural grasp of grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Amanda takes an innovative and creative approach to process improvement. Adept at working effectively as part of a team or independently, Amanda has been successful in integrating into various workplaces.
Claire-Louise McCurdy - governance, facilitation and community research
Claire-Louise brings a long and varied experience to Development Action. Her extensive governance knowledge is hands-on, including participating and/or leading governing bodies of a range of very different civil society organisations, as well as involvement in the management and administration of diverse organisations in government and the not-for-profit sector.
Additionally, Claire-Louise has designed courses and workshops both inside and outside the formal education sector. She has facilitated workshops and meetings, and tutored diverse groups in non-formal adult and community education and the formal tertiary education sector.
Finally, Claire-Louise is adept at editing and preparing for presentation and publication ‘texts’ ranging from magazine articles to manuals to academic papers and theses, to novels and short stories.
Lee Sentes - programme design, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation
Lee has been working for non-government organisations globally since 1997, including three NGO networks in the UK and New Zealand Aotearoa. Personable and easy to work with, Lee has a particular interest in strategic planning. For Lee, such planning covers a wide range, from helping organisations consider how best to design community development projects, to working with boards who may be new to the not-for-profit sector.
Lee is also a skilled facilitator and has an interest in monitoring and evaluation that focuses on outcomes.
Development Action Associates
The following independent consultants have a wide range of fantastic skills. We work together to provide a "best team for the job" approach.
Ann Braun - Braun Wheatley Partners (abraunw.blogspot.com)
Monitoring and evaluation of national and international development initiatives.
Development of monitoring frameworks and systems.
M&E Training, mentoring, coaching and facilitation.
Advice on frameworks, systems, evaluation TORS and plans.
Support to communities of practice.
Participatory, gender sensitive and mixed methods approaches.
Dayan Eager - ProAid Ltd. (dayaneager@proaid.co.nz)
Successfully secured funds over 2.5 million from trusts, foundations and governments in New Zealand and overseas. Has existing relationships with government departments to access funding as well as corporates, trusts and foundations.
Programme research, design and project management support in most community development activities.
Designing, producing and delivering sales and marketing support for capital campaigns, major gifts, appeals, events and corporate sponsorship.
Researching and writing grant applications to trusts, foundations and government donors.
Sonya Hogan - (sonyahogan@rocketmail.com)
Worked in rights-based community and international development for 10 years.
Experience in needs assessments, project development, implementation and evaluation, developing strategic and business plans.
Experience in facilitation, training and resource development.
Work has focused on participatory approaches to upskill and build capacity.
Gino Maresca - Personal Growth Facilitator (www.lifecoachingbydesign.com)
10 years experience as an educator, facilitator, trainer and manager, working with community groups, team leaders, managers and development NGOs to create healthy functioning teams. Significant experience with essential core elements of successful team and programme management, goal identification and setting, time management, delegation, strategic planning, management plans, implementation and evaluation, and the application of adaptive challenge
model to staff development and management.
Sharon Shea - Shea Pita and Associates Ltd. (www.sheapita.co.nz)
Recognised leader in the field of health sector strategy, outcomes framework development – applying Friedman’s Results Based Accountability™ Framework project management, change managementand systems design.
Substantial experience in how to improve organisational performance and provides tailored governance training.
Sharon is particularly interested in Maori Development and reducing health, social, education and economic inequalities across all populations.