About Us | Hillary Frances

Hillary Frances, M.A.

Founder and Principal

Hillary Frances has over twenty years experience working with nonprofit leaders.

She has an undergraduate degree in Sociology and a Master’s in International and Intercultural Communication. The first degree: everything we know has been invented by culture, especially God. The second degree: stop telling stories about people, let them speak for themselves.

She began her career as a job developer for refugees. They taught her that getting to use your talents at work is a rare privilege.

She tried to shift statewide employment trends for refugees as the Training and Employment Coordinator for the State of Colorado’s Refugee Services Program. Meaning less meatpacking and housekeeping and more jobs that match everyone’s interest and experience. That idea had traction for about 6 months.

She received feedback that she was a loud typist when she worked as an instructional dean at a technical college.

She co-founded an employment-focused social enterprise and built an expertise for measuring and evaluating intangible outcomes like “healing from trauma” and “workforce skills.”

She learned how to be a consultant at Seed Fundraisers where she supported over 125 national organizations and nearly 300 leaders as they clarified their fundraising strategy and operationalized their day-to-day practice.

Her role as a professor of Research Methods at Metro State University sharpens her skills in evaluation. You may become a case study for her students.

Now she runs Flying Whale Strategies, specializing in equipping leaders to solve impossible problems.

Working in the Lineage of:

My great grandmother Frances’ life ended early and tragically. Though I don’t know much about her, I believe I’m working to continue her lineage which birthed tremendous creativity and strong female leaders. Her mother, my great great grandmother, was one of the first female doctors in California in the early 1900s. We are a lineage of healers, entrepreneurs, and pace setters.

Approach to Facilitation:

I aim for liberation: what can our most liberated selves dream of doing together?
I aim to trust that the people in the room have the answers.
I aim to locate the conversations that can only happen right now, with these people, in this place.
I aim to call us to our highest order selves.
I aim to acknowledge that which needs to be grieved from our history as individuals and as an organization.
I aim to point people to their innate desire for rigor.
I aim to avoid perfection: “Perfection is a commitment to habitual self-doubt.” –Prentis Hemphill
I aim to do the small things well, as they are a reflection of the big.

Email hillary:

hfrances@flyingwhalestrategies.com

Advisory Board

Steph Frances

Executive Director

Bikes Together

Why Steph?

Names Steph has been called:

National Bad Ass
Powerhouse
Hustler
Entrepreneur

Note: Hillary and Steph were once married to each other and are now friends and colleagues.

Steph is the National Vice President of Programs and Training for Momentum Advisory Collective, the capacity-building organization for Cafe Momentum. She is also the founder of Prodigy Ventures. Founded in 2015, Prodigy Ventures operates a social enterprise and apprenticeship for young adults disconnected from school and work in Denver. Steph led Prodigy’s enterprise to double-digit year-over-year sales growth and built an apprenticeship model for disconnected youth with an 85% completion rate. Prodigy has received numerous accolades including ranked by USA Today as the tenth best independent coffee shop in the country in 2023.

As a fundraiser, Steph was trained by Seed Founder, Dan Reed, in the start-up phase of Prodigy. Prior to studying with Seed, she had never previously raised a dollar, written a grant or led an organization. In six years, Prodigy has grown into a social enterprise leader, a Global Homeboy Network trainer, a consultant to clients across the country, and into a $3M organization. Prodigy was awarded the 2021 Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award, for organizations leading the charge to address tough issues related to economic mobility. In 2022, Steph led the organization in an Expansion Campaign to open a $2.5M second location, fully funded, allowing Prodigy to double the number of participants and deepen impact in a new community while increasing internal revenue.

She is a facilitator and co-designer of Facing Whiteness, a guided course for white people ready to examine their personal relationship to white privilege and work to disrupt white supremacy. She is also a proud 2020 Livingston Fellow, and a Denver Business Journal Outstanding Women in Business finalist. She learned from Eagle Rock’s School of Professional Studies, has a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Regis University and is an altMBA graduate.

Cultivation of the inherent greatness in every person, especially those marginalized by inequitable systems.

I carry myself as a misfit, but strive for excellence. You may see me as an unlikely professional, and therefore am consistently underestimated. But, I love operating in this space; it is similar to the way many apprentices at Prodigy walk in this world. My authenticity as a leader is refreshing for many, and allows me to connect with people. My leadership is an outgrowth of an insatiable desire to cultivate the inherent greatness in others. From this desire, I first inhabit a fierce self-accountability and integrity. And, I am wired for relationships of mutuality, where no matter who you are or what title you do or don’t have, we both matter, equally. And I connect best with people as we work together with a common purpose. I do every task at every level of Prodigy, in mutuality with apprentices, Board and leadership staff alike, and often volunteer to take the hardest of tasks. I believe this is where transformational relationships experience the oxygen to grow and thrive, and where unspoken leadership values are both learned and taught. I’m inspired by Rabbi’s Heschel’s description of his role as he marched in Selma alongside Dr. King, Jr, “I prayed with my feet.”

Why Paige?

Paige is a seasoned nonprofit leader. We can throw any organizational challenge at Paige and she will have an idea that starts with, "Why don't they just..." It will be a bold difficult move and she will look at you like it's no big deal.

Paige Byron Curry

Executive Director
Astoria Park Conservancy

Paige Byron Curry has over 10 years of experience in fundraising and non-profit management. During that time, she has helped raise over $30M to support conservation, education, and community access and launched two new organizations: Astoria Park Conservancy and Jackson Hole Children’s Museum. Paige holds a Master of Curriculum and Instruction from University of Wyoming and a Bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College. She is an avid outdoor woman, a voracious reader, and an amateur chef. She lives in Jackson, WY with her husband and son.

Paige has been immersed in the reactivation of Astoria Park in Northwest Wyoming since 2015, a project that positively impacts the cultural fabric of residents in Lincoln, Sublette and Teton Counties. At the crossroads of public health and conservation, Astoria offers inspiring outdoor experiences that enhance livability, health and wellbeing in a riverside park and public hot springs facility. Striving to disrupt the status-quo, Astoria Park Conservancy uses its platform as a community connector to offer critical mental and physical health benefits to a broad population, with a firm belief that these benefits are not solely for the few. Paige serves on the advisory boards of Mountain Journal and the Grand Adventure, and as the President of the Board of the International Hot Springs Association.

I believe in the power of philanthropy and in the responsibility of action and engagement. I believe in the power of the Civic Commons and the outdoors to break down barriers. I believe it is my responsibility to leave this place better than I found it and to mitigate my impact on our earth. I believe that connection is at the heart of community work, and that it is critical to involve the communities which will benefit from that work in its design and implementation.

Facilitation requires a deep understanding of intentions and a clear picture of success, and I strive to bring excellence and encourage that for those who join me in these processes. The investment of time, talent, treasure, and testimony are all required to be a bold disruptor. Fear has no place in this work.

I was born and raised in the Tetons, the land of Newe Sogobia, Tsestho’e, Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla, and Shoshone-Bannock. The perspective that I bring to life is born out of a strong connection with this land and the communities formed by it. The position I now hold has been formed from my privilege and my responsibility is to continue to understand the grief it has caused others. Listening will bring about change and enhance outcomes for all initiatives. Nothing can be accomplished alone.

A second generation resident of Wyoming, my parents and grandparents both dreamed about a Western landscape that offered a solution to those who seek adventure and community. I believe that we must be creative and collaborative to elevate the impact we have at a critical moment. As someone who strived to explore the highest peaks and river valleys of her surroundings, a connection to the outdoors is at the heart of my legacy. Society depends on future generations being willing to take risks and believing in the importance of conservation in all they do.

Sarah Cryder

Executive Director
City Kids Wilderness Project

Why Sarah?

As a former consultant herself and a nonprofit leader who has hired several consultants, Sarah knows the difference between mediocre work and excellent work. Flying Whale looks to Sarah for where to set the bar.

Sarah is the Executive Director of City Kids Wilderness Project. She has an extensive strategic business planning and project management background. Prior to joining City Kids, she worked with local and national charter and district schools, foundations, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit service providers with a mission focused on improving education and life outcomes for underserved children. Sarah has also consulted with the D.C. Public Schools to implement evidence-based mental health intervention pilot programs, research successful national pilot interventions, and evaluate program outcomes through data-driven metrics. Sarah holds a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s degree from Boston College.

Tomo Hamakawa

Co-founder and Chief Exploration Officer
Earth Company

Why Tomo?

Tomo works with "flying whales" all day long. He is in the business of supporting social entrepreneurs who don't take no for an answer. He is an ally in helping Flying Whale build the formula for an operating system capable of solving the world's most pressing challenges once and for all.

Tomo is a seasoned development professional having lived and worked in various corners of the world from the Tibetan plateau, Indian drylands, Indonesian tropics, to Japanese metropolises. He has extensive field experience working for international and local development NGOs across Asia and Africa, including Kopernik, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the World Bank. He was formerly an Assistant Professor at the Global Leadership Program at the University of Tokyo.

He is the Co-founder and Chief Exploration Officer of Earth Company in Bali. Based in Japan and Indonesia, Earth Company is an impact-driven social enterprise that offers transformational support to change-makers, delivers inspiring educational programs, provides professional consulting services, and manages a next generation eco hotel in Ubud, Bali called Mana Earthly Paradise, the first B corp certified hotel in Southeast Asia.

Tomo’s professional curiosity orbits areas of organizational development, personal transformation, and regenerative design, which recently culminated in the publication of The Innovator’s Tale of the Phoenix and Dragon in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that was published not only in English, but also in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (forthcoming).

Tomo has a BA in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, a Masters in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, and was an Asia Pacific Leadership Program Fellow (2008) and Innovation Fellow (2020) at the East-West Center. In 2014 Tomo was awarded the Dalai Lama’s Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award.