FUNDRAISING CONSULTING | STRATEGIC PLANNING | BOARD DEVELOPMENT | LEADERSHIP RETREATS | CAPACITY-BUILDING
We’re driven by
a passion for
social justice
The Athena Advisors is a social enterprise using its knowledge, experience and connections to assist mission driven organizations by improving their fundraising approach and ability – creating a more equitable, more sustainable world.



Fundraising and Organizational Management
Thurgood Marshall College Fund makes the prospects a lot brighter for 300,000 college students at 47 Historically-Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
The Athena Advisors look out for TMCF’s prospects.
Learn more about how we help organizations get better at what they do best.
We help develop the skills, capabilities and systems for more effective fundraising performance—throughout your whole organization.
We analyze your organization’s capacity to raise significant funds with a focus on sustainability. Using data, best practices, years of working at all levels of a variety of organizations, and common sense, we build the strategy to get the funds you need.
We identify prospects and create a plan to get you started fast.
Not sure you love fundraising like we do? We help you find the language to have transformative conversations with people who could fund your mission.
We use our knowledge, experience and connections to refine your approach to fundraising and relationships—orienting the whole organization around its fundraising responsibilities and priorities. We have an organization-wide framework when it comes to fundraising because successful fundraising is everyone’s responsibility even if the buck stops with you.
We prepare policies with you and for you to manage roles and risks in fundraising. This requires political sophistication. Sometimes an “outsider-in-chief” is just what you need.
We help you and your board get clear on roles and responsibilities.
Every organization has weak spots and risk. We will be candid with you. We are backing you. You have important work to do.

Board Development and Coaching
Charlie Merinoff is Chairman of one of the nation’s leading distributors of fine wines and spirits.
Chairing a nonprofit board requires more rarefied skills.
Learn more about how we help board chairs and board members serve nonprofits
Nonprofit board members often come from the corporate world, but a nonprofit setting is different. New skills are required. The rules of engagement are different. We help boards have the policies, structure, and know-how to operate effectively. We help organizations track the right metrics to ensure positive impact. We help you prepare for and manage something most organizations avoid—succession planning for the CEO and board chair. We support board chairs to be effective with their board members, CEOs, and funders. We take you behind the scenes in the nonprofit sector to prepare you to govern an organization. We lead board and staff retreats to revitalize and refocus your strategies.

Capacity Building Programs: Stronger/Together
Everyone who knows Carmen Bitar knows that, with her bachelor’s degree cum laude from John Jay College, the sky’s the limit.
But she knows that, with the right experience, connections and mentoring, she can soar even higher.
Learn about our programs that strengthen the nonprofit sector and those who serve it.
Carmen Bitar wanted to learn more about fundraising, to add to her wide range of talents and expertise. She had a fellowship with us in 2019. She continues to participate in several other programs that we created to support those who devote their lives to working in the social justice sector. Those programs are called Stronger/Together, a portfolio of programs for capacity-building.
Beyond a conventional consulting firm that affects change client-by-client, The Athena Advisors is driven by a belief in social justice and dedicated to raising the performance and capacity of our mission driven sector to achieve it. That’s why we have created programs that build individual, organizational and global programs for good.
We believe we are Stronger/Together. We demonstrate that belief with these six programs that help people connect, grow, and thrive.