Savannah-Jane Griffin, MBA

Associate

Consulting Areas: Strategic Planning, DEIA, Community Building, Social Media Management, Fundraising

Savannah-Jane Griffin is a nationally-recognized leader specializing in non-profit leadership, strategic planning, DEIA, and community building. She currently serves as CEO of the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia, the leading non-profit organization benefiting the homeless in Central Florida, with oversight of a $3.6 million budget. Before serving as CEO, she worked at Stetson University for 15 years, leading and managing the campus's efforts in community engagement, diversity and inclusion, and religious and spiritual life.

Through her consulting work, she has helped numerous businesses, non-profit organizations, and higher education institutions build strategic plans that help them achieve their long-term goals. She has created engaging, customized DEIA training programs tailored to the needs of each organization. She recently designed and facilitated the Inclusive DeLand training series in partnership with Volusia County and the City of DeLand, which provided 15 hours of training to local leaders. She is a Certified Strengths-Based Facilitator and has coached 300+ individuals on their Gallup Strengths Assessment.

Savannah-Jane Griffin became the Chief Executive Officer of the Neighborhood Center of West Volusia in February 2022, the leading organization that feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, and prevents homelessness in Central Florida. Over the past year, she's established strategic partnerships in the community to help tackle the current affordable housing crisis, she has secured $500,000 in new grant and donor funds that go directly toward preventing homelessness in Volusia County, and her team has assisted over 15,000 individuals this year alone seeking homeless prevention services.

As a result of her 15-year tenure at Stetson University serving as Executive Director of Community Engagement and Inclusive Excellence, Savannah-Jane elevated Stetson to national recognition and achievement by securing the university's 2015 designation by the Carnegie Foundation as a "university making extraordinary commitments to its public purpose." In 2021, Stetson received the Gold Seal distinction from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge for "demonstrating formidable commitment to empowering student voters to participate in our democracy," as a result of record student voter turnout during the 2020 presidential elections.

Savannah-Jane was instrumental in Stetson securing its $2 million endowment from the Bonner Foundation for the Bonner Scholars Program, establishing the AmeriCorps VISTA Program, and stewarding multiple grant awards to ensure students' civic engagement towards leading lives of purpose. She played an integral role in launching Stetson's Peace Corps Prep Program and collaborated with diverse constituencies to advance faculty's professional development and achievement. Savannah-Jane also developed and led the Bias Education Support Team (BEST), a process designed to address and reduce bias incidents on campus. Moreover, she dedicated significant leadership and effort in administering Stetson's annual Values Day programming, from annually facilitating the call for proposals to bringing internationally-renowned speakers to campus, such as Pulitzer Prize award recipient and author Isabel Wilkerson. To that end, Savannah-Jane has consistently received national recognition for her work, including being named a Bonner Foundation National Fellow and achieving the Florida Campus Compact Community Educator of the Year Award.

She has taught a writing intensive course on Global Citizenship for the past nine years in Stetson University's First Year Seminar Program. She has been an active member of the DeLand community, serving on the board of the Mainstreet DeLand Association, the Advent Health Foundation, and the Greater Union Life Center. Savannah-Jane holds a BA in Business Administration and an MBA from Stetson University.

Savannah-Jane is a proud mom of her two children, Sara-Dean and Forrest, and a loving wife to Army Veteran Christopher Griffin.