Our Consultant Team Members
Advisory Council
The evaluation team is guided by an Advisory Council comprised of top-level experts in business and entrepreneur development.
Donna Gambrell,President and CEO of Appalachian Community Capital
Donna is a highly regarded leader with a record of accomplishments directing start-up organizations and “right sizing” organizations adversely impacted by financial and resource constraints. She has an impressive string of achievements, including enhancing the capacity of community-based organizations, administering a multi-million- dollar awards program that assists low-income communities nationwide, and promoting and marketing the accomplishments of her many organizations. Her non-profit community development financial institution, Appalachian Community Capital, promotes small business development throughout the distressed Appalachia region. She serves on the boards of three national CDFIs and is a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Donna was not only the first African American woman to hold the position of director of the U.S. Treasury’s CDFI Fund, but she was also the longest serving director in the fund’s history.
Don Macke, Senior Vice President e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
Don leads, and is the Senior Vice President with, e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems (formerly the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship), hosted by NetWork Kansas to build sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems across North America. Don has over 40 years of community economic development and policy experience. He was most recently the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the national Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. Through this work, Don helps communities and regions throughout North America grow entrepreneur-focused economic development strategies and ecosystems.
Peter Hackbert, Ph.D., Chair of Entrepreneurship and Management at Berea College
Peter is a nationally recognized expert in entrepreneurship education, and serves as a teacher, scholar, public speaker, social and civic entrepreneur, and consultant. Building upon his research and teaching interests in career pathways, and emerging growth companies in high-technology and digital information, he contributes to the infusion of the entrepreneurial mindset for entrepreneurs who may have little or no business or management education background. Dr. Hackbert is currently the William and Kay Moore Chair of Entrepreneurship and Management at Berea College.
Nicole Dunn, Director & Co-founder of Chamberlin/Dunn LLC (C/D)
Nicole is Director & Co-founder of Chamberlin/Dunn LLC (C/D), where she applies research, evaluation, and technical assistance to improve nonprofit and public sector initiatives. Since 2018, Nicole and her team have collected qualitative and quantitative data from hundreds of Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) POWER grantees, beneficiaries, and stakeholders across ARC’s 13 states, in a series of implementation and outcome evaluations designed to assess the strengths, challenges, lessons learned, and results of economic transformation projects. C/D also serves under ARC as the technical assistance provider to nearly 50 USDOL WORC initiative grantees, conducting ongoing and informal assessments of grantee progress and offering guidance and support as they navigate implementation challenges. Nicole is most passionate about projects that prioritize learning and growth, believing deeply in C/D’s mission of providing better data for better decisions. She holds a Master of Public Affairs in Nonprofit Management and a Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs, Policy Studies, from the Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI.
