The Jewish Community Center of the North Shore Sunday honored Jo Ann Simons and Jansi Chandler, the two coordinators of its $2.5 million capital campaign, which has raised $2.4 million thus far.
“Our campaign success and our amazing honorees are so intertwined that we knew we couldn’t celebrate the success of the campaign without also collectively acknowledging and celebrating Jo Ann Simons and Jansi Chandler,” said event emcee Karen Robinson, the JCC’s director of Communications, Marketing, and PR.
Both have long histories and great successes in financial development.
Simons, of Swampscott, has served as the president/CEO of Cardinal Cushing Centers; on the Board of LIFE, Inc.; and for the past nine years as president and CEO of Northeast Arc, which raised more than $3 million through its Campaign for Linking Lives.
“She has dedicated her life to making the world a more inclusive and welcoming place for those with intellectual differences and disabilities,” said Robinson, who credited Simons for introducing “her friend and fundraising superstar, Jansi Chandler,” to the JCC campaign.
Chandler, of Marblehead, led the Lynn Department of Community Development for 11 years, generating more than $80 million in federal and state funding. She chaired Girls Inc. of Lynn’s $11 million campaign. As director of Development at Grant Communications Consulting Group, Chandler has guided nonprofits such as Northeast Arc, Baker Center for Children and Families, Lynn Museum and Historical Society, and the Fenway Alliance in their fundraising strategies and campaigns.
“Why would these two incredibly qualified professionals offer their expertise pro bono?” Robinson said. “For both Jansi and Jo Ann, this campaign is personal.”
Simons’ father, Shep Simons, and Chandler’s father, Herb Chandler, were both members of the JCC in Lynn as youth and later in life helped lead the agency’s move to its current location in Marblehead.
It is their fathers’ legacies the daughters wish to honor.
For more information or to make a donation to the campaign, contact Sam Andler, Director of Development, at sandler@jccns.com.