Servant Fellows
Overview
Servant Fellows are highly-respected individuals who can influence others to develop a service-driven approach to philanthropy. With emphasis on the role of forging servants, training for Servant Fellows focuses on the following fundamental principles:
- Empathize and utilize empathy in individual and community change
- Promote team models of leadership
- Encourage and embrace innovation
- Affirm the significance of faith in service models
- Celebrate the accomplishments of others
- Possess a teachable attitude
- Learn by doing
- Value diversity and inclusion
James E. Copple (Co-Founder)
James E. Copple is a founding member of Servant Forge, a national non-profit promoting the role of service in professions that touch and empower human lives globally. Servant Forge is an internationally involved non-profit providing training, publications, and consultation to communities and governments working to enhance the safety, freedom, health, and education of our global citizens.
Mr. Copple has been involved in public service for over 40 years. Currently, Mr. Copple is president of the International Institute for Alcohol Awareness (IIAA). The focus of IIAA is to address the primary issues of problem drinking and underage alcohol consumption. Currently, Mr. Copple is also a senior policy analyst for the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Prior to coming to PIRE, Mr. Copple served as the Vice President for Public Policy and Chief Operating Officer for the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). In that position Mr. Copple was one of the spokespersons for NCPC and oversaw the departments responsible for Project Safe Neighborhood, Citizen Engagement in Homeland Security, Substance Abuse Prevention, Production and Training, Youth and Teens Crime and Community, National Youth Safety Corps, National Service, and the Office of New Americans. Mr. Copple helped coordinate the various media campaigns for the Crime Prevention Coalition of America. While at the National Crime Prevention Council, Mr. Copple spearheaded the passage of the Crime-Free Rural Grant Initiative with a $10 million a year authorization in the Department of Justice.
Prior to his appointment at NCPC, Mr. Copple was the founding President and CEO of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA), a privately funded, non-partisan membership organization of 4300 anti-drug and violence prevention coalitions. CADCA, was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Knight Foundation and numerous corporate and media based foundations. Under Mr. Copple's leadership, CADCA was responsible for passage of the Drug-Free Communities Act with an appropriation of $143 million to support community collaboration around drug abuse and violence prevention.
Mr. Copple served as Special Assistant to the Superintendent of Schools in Wichita, Kansas where he also was the founding director of Project Freedom, a local comprehensive coalition addressing drug abuse and gang violence, was the founding Principal of the Downtown Law, Public and Social Service Magnet High School, principal of North High School and served on the Governor's Advisory Committee on Juvenile Crime. For the National Crime Prevention Council Mr. Copple authored Safer Schools: Strategies for Educators and Law Enforcement Seeking to Prevent Violence within Schools.
Mr. Copple has worked internationally, serving with Student Mission Corps of the Alliance for Progress in Bolivia and has done significant work in citizen engagement and service around substance abuse and violence issues in Panama, Colombia, and Peru. Mr. Copple developed a collaborative agreement and helped establish substance abuse prevention and treatment protocols between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in their effort to address an emerging substance abuse problem among their youth.
Mr. Copple holds a B.A. in history from Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, a Masters of Divinity degree from Nazarene Theological Seminary and has done further graduate work at Boston College, John Hopkins University and doctoral work in the History and Philosophy of Education at the University of Kansas. Mr. Copple is a highly regarded speaker and writer in the community service, education, substance abuse, mental health and violence prevention field.
Colleen K. Copple (Co-Founder)
Colleen K. Copple is a founding member of Servant Forge, a non-profit focused on driving change in the helping professions. She is also a founding partner of Strategic Applications International, LLC. SAI is an internationally involved consulting firm specializing in helping organizations and communities respond to crime, violence, substance abuse, educational change, and security issues.
Ms. Copple is a Senior Research Fellow with the Sagamore Institute for Public Policy and serves as a consultant with the U.S. Department of Justice, Community Capacity Development Office. Her work at CCDO focuses on creating national strategic partnerships for the Weed and Seed Program that increase resources and support for community based coalitions addressing crime, prevention, intervention, treatment, and neighborhood revitalization. Ms. Copple served as a former Weed and Seed site coordinator in Salt Lake City, UT in the mid 90's and brings her collaborative approach to her work at CCDO.
Prior to launching SAI in December of 2003, Ms. Copple served as Senior Advisor to the President for New Initiatives at the National Crime Prevention Council. Ms. Copple came to NCPC in 1999 as the Associate Deputy Director and oversaw a number of responsibilities during her five year tenure at NCPC including Youth Programs, Training, and the Crime Prevention Coalition of America. New initiatives that Ms. Copple was responsible for designing, funding, and implementing include: a national Weed and Seed training and technical assistance program; a national response to methamphetamine funded by the COPS Office and SAMHSA that included statewide Meth Summits, and a national clearinghouse on methamphetamine; and the Center for Faith and Service, which included major grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts to launch their faith-based technical assistance project FATEN, and the training/ta grant for faith-based initiatives with the Corporation for National and Community Service. Other examples of her contributions include: designing and funding two national school safety initiatives, "National Youth Safety Corps" and "National Safety and Security Council;" increasing membership in the Crime Prevention Coalition of America from 120 to 4,000+; training more that 200 community teams in the 3 day executive seminar "Cutting Edge" in collaboration with the DEA; and developing a 32 hour training curriculum for law enforcement on underage drinking.
Ms. Copple joined NCPC after shepherding a series of successful community initiatives in Salt Lake City, Utah. These include the Glendale Community Mobilization Project, a gang prevention project recognized by OJJDP as a national model, the Comprehensive Communities Program recognized by Attorney General Janet Reno for its innovative design in reinventing government, the Salt Lake City Weed and Seed program which generated over $10 million in resources committed to her neighborhood to address youth violence, and the COPS Methamphetamine Initiative which created the first comprehensive response to methamphetamine and generated over $1 million to support prevention, treatment, and enforcement efforts. Responding to an emerging gang problem in Utah, she co-founded Mothers Against Gangs In Communities (MAGIC) in 1991. A former school board member, state PTA leader, and mother of six, Ms. Copple has over 20 years of experience working at the local, state, and national levels. She has organized neighborhoods, redesigned city infrastructure, changed the ways state and federal agencies do business, and designed and implemented national initiatives, all in the process of naming and claiming our children and our communities. Her organizing motto is: Now is the time. This is the place. We are the ones.
Ben Bartholomew
Ben began his career as a freelance photographer and designer in 2000 while still attending junior high school. Since then, Ben has become a self-taught expert in many web technologies including PHP, Flash, MySQL, Apache, and more importantly how to channel them towards acheiving a greater goal. In 2007, Ben held a position as an Account Manager at Horizon West Mangagement, Utah's leading escrow auditing firm, where he audited approximately $1 billion in escrow transactions. Near the end of 2007, Ben left Horizon West Management to better focus on his studies at the University of Utah and eventually to organize Rising Rain Studios LLC. Since starting the company in 2007, the company has managed to experience over a 400% annual revenue growth rate despite a slow economy and competitive industry.
Ben graduated magna cum laude from Utah Valley State College (now Utah Valley University) in April 2005 with an Associate's degree in Integrated Studies -- a full month before finishing his high school diploma at Amereican Fork High School where he was the Salutatorian of his graduation class. As a junior in high school, Ben was the Editor-and-chief of the 26 person yearbook staff which generated in excess of $65,000 of revenue through direct sales and advertising for the production of the yearbook themed "A Year of Changes" which sold out all 1,250+ copies of the book well in advance of its release. Ben was also the Business & Marketing Sterling Scholar and recepient of Utah's New Century Scholarhip, the University of Utah's Honors at Entrance Scholarship, and Utah State University's Presidential Scholarship.
Ben went on to study art at the University of Utah for a time before switching majors to Accounting from the David Eccles School of Business. Ben graduated with his Bachelor's degree in Accounting in April 2009 from University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business.
Ben is also a consultant for Strategic Applications International and a member of Grouplicty, LLC.
Outside of work, Ben enjoys life greatly. He is an avid golfer with an 8 handicap and makes it out on the course whenever possible. Ben loves to dance and participates in Ballroom Dance competitions across the nation performing the Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, and Quickstep. Ben currently competes in the Prechampionship and Amateur divisions and eventually wishes to compete at the professional level.
Kimberly J. Dalferes
Kim has been involved in public policy and systems reform, especially in the juvenile and criminal justice fields, for over twenty years. Currently Kim is a Principal Partner with Dalferes Enterprises, Inc., a project management and public policy consulting firm that she owns with her husband Greg. Kim's passion for public service includes experience in juvenile and criminal justice planning, systems reform, crime prevention, government relations, resource development, grant writing and management, coalition building, and addressing girls and delinquency. Her publications include Mobilizing the Nation to Prevent Crime, Violence and Drug Abuse (CPCA annual report, NCPC, 2005 and 2006), Prevention Can Be a Priority in the Midst of Fiscal Calamity (Topics in Crime Prevention series, NCPC, September 2003) and What About Girls? (with Ellen Shields-Fletcher, OJJDP Fact Sheet #84, September 1998).
Kim began her career while still in college when Florida Governor Bob Graham appointed her to Florida's Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDP) State Advisory Group (SAG). Kim served as a member of the SAG while in graduate school at Florida State University where she earned her Masters degree in Criminology in 1987. For six years she served as the Juvenile Justice Specialist for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice where she was responsible for oversight and implementation of the provisions of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, grants administration program/service development, legislative liaison, and training and technical assistance. While in Tallahassee, Kim also worked as a criminology adjunct professor.
In 1995, Kim left the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice to travel to Washington, DC and joined the State Relations and Assistance Division (SRAD) of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Kim worked as the Region Chief for SRAD's Midwest and Northeast regions until her promotion to Director of OJJDP's Concentration of Federal Efforts (CFE) Program. As the Director of the CFE Program, Kim facilitated the coordination of juvenile justice activities across Federal agencies. In this capacity she also directed the work of the Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, an eighteen member Council chaired by the Attorney General and consisting of representatives from nine Federal agencies and nine practitioner members.
In 2001 Kim was hired by the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC, home of McGruff the Crime Dog®) to serve as the Director of the Embedding Prevention in State Policy and Practice initiative, was appointed national director of the Crime Prevention Coalition of America (CPCA) in January 2004, and became managing director of NCPC's Constituency Services division in March 2006. Kim's work as Managing Director included her continuing to serve as the CPCA National Director and supervise staff with responsibilities for CPCA, and to also manage NCPC's government relations, training, and conferencing (including the National Conference on Preventing Crime, the premiere national crime prevention conference event). Kim's duties included budget and contractual negotiations, congressional and federal agency activities (including appropriations requests), federal legislation tracking, policy review, and representing NCPC for various external relationships. Examples include the staff lead for NCPC's National Watch Groups Summit (conducted in May 2007 in partnership with US Departments of Justice and Homeland Security) and serving on the Board of Directors for National Safe Place®.
Rebecca Edwards
After receiving her Bachelor's of Science and Master's of Arts degrees in English and secondary education from the University of Connecticut, Rebecca has taught at both the middle and high school levels. She was her district's nominee for the state's beginning teacher of the year award, and was also recognized for excellence in team teaching by the Connecticut Association of Middle School Principals. Her professional experiences have included teaching English and language arts in both suburban and urban settings. As an educator, she has been cited for her creative and non-traditional approach to meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of all children. Rebecca's teaching career has included educating the most talented as well as the most challenged students.
Beyond her classroom experiences, Rebecca developed and implemented an innovative alternative educational program specifically designed to meet the needs of students who have met with repeated failure or incarceration. As the architect of this inventive program, she was successfully able to reach those students who had otherwise been abandoned by society. Her expertise in developing and implementing systems of intervention and prevention at the classroom level translates into great academic and behavioral success for her students.
Most recently focusing her attention on writing and consulting, Rebecca has written and edited documents for a variety of national organizations, and has recently revised the curriculum for the Amer-I-Can program, which was founded and run by football Hall-of-Famer, Jim Brown. She has also contributed to the expansion of the Amer-I-Can program to schools in England, and has worked to redesign the curriculum to meet the needs of those students. While she pursues a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, she continues to focus her efforts on techniques to assist educators in reaching those students who have experienced repeated school failure.
Dr. Steven W. Edwards
A leader nationally recognized by USA Today for his innovative approach to education, Dr. Edwards successfully implemented numerous programs to improve student performance during his sixteen year tenure as a school administrator. One such program, the Student Assistance Center, was one of only seven national winners of grass roots programs. The Center combined school and community to solve educational issues.
Dr. Edwards also has been instrumental in helping countless school districts tailor similar programs with positive, far-reaching results. In addition, Dr. Edwards is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, facilitator and trainer regularly featured as a content expert on television and radio with appearances on CNN on topics such as school safety, school climate and reform and strategic planning. As a planner Dr. Edwards has worked locally, nationally and internationally with both for-profit and non-profit organizations, such as schools, churches, corporations and cities. Clients include The World Bank and The United Nations. As a planner he has assisted groups and individuals in identifying and achieving individual and organizational goals.
Throughout his twenty-eight year professional career, Dr. Edwards has published numerous articles on school reform, and has authored a book, which outlines the implementation of the Student Assistance Center. He has also served as an adjunct professor for the University of Connecticut, teaching prospective administrators in the Graduate School of Education. In addition, Dr. Steven Edwards has served as the Vice President for the Children, Communities, and Youth Division of the National Crime Prevention Council in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw initiatives that focus on delivering a crime prevention message to America's youth. His efforts in this area involved working with schools, youth service agencies, community leaders and policy makers across the country and internationally. He also served as a Professor in the Graduate School of Educational Leadership at The George Washington University, teaching courses in planning and organizational change.
Currently, Dr. Edwards is President and CEO of Edwards Educational Services, where he oversees educational initiatives both nationally and internationally. His most recent publication is a dropout prevention monograph outlining seven effective strategies principals can implement to reduce the dropout rates in their schools.
Carley Frohling
Carley Frohling began her career in the private sector. Working at one of the nation’s largest consulting firms, American Management Systems (now CGI), she traveled the country working with telecommunications companies to implement solutions that managed risk in their credit and collections portfolio. With that experience, she moved on to work at Acumen Solutions to support their growing business and staff development objectives.
In 2001, Carley switched directions – deciding to apply her 10 years of skills and experience to help other organizations fulfill their mission to serve others. She began this second phase of her career at the National Crime Prevention Council, where she became the Director of the Center for Faith and Service. The mission of the Center was to build capacity of small community and faith-based organizations. In this role, she managed two separate programs including Faith and Communities Engaged in Service for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the Faith and Service Technical Education Network (FASTEN). Her overall responsibilities were to manage clients and consultants, implement quality control measures, and manage the overall budget (over $2.5 million), staff, and program resources to accomplish goals on time and within budget. In addition, she developed and delivered capacity building training to over 400 CNCS grantees, wrote numerous training publications and tools, raised federal funding for the programs, and collaborated with over 30 grassroots organizations and two federal agencies to host six regional conferences around the country in nine months.
Anxious to apply these skills at the grassroots level, Carley then transitioned to work with two, separate Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies, first as the Director of Outreach for Central Maryland and second as the Vice President of Development for Greater Pittsburgh. In these roles, she developed community resources and funding to build and sustain mentoring programs for children living in at-risk circumstances. She developed strategic community partnerships with foundations, corporations, faith- and community-based organizations, and law enforcement agencies. She developed new programs and initiatives that allowed each agency to reach more at-risk children as well as attract hard-to-reach volunteers such as men and busy professionals. In addition, she helped contributed to a more engaged board of directors and implemented creative improvements to expand the organizational capacity to serve more children with higher quality.
Over the past several years, Carley has served as a consultant for two training and technical assistance providers for two separate federal agencies. First, she worked with Amachi and a team of consultants to support nine CNCS grantees to use AmeriCorps members in their implementation of the mentoring children of prisoners program. The second role is with an organization providing assistance to the Department of Health and Human Services for their mentoring children of prisoners grantees. Here, she develops and conducts remote learning for grantees on current issues facing their programs as well as provides direct technical assistance on a one-to-one basis.
Carley is currently as staff consultant for Strategic Applications International, LLC where she works on domestic and international projects aimed at building local capacity to address pressing community issues. These issues include tackling chronic youth employment, mentoring high risk youth, and addressing methamphetamine use in rural communities.
Cosmos Mutowa
Cosmos Mutowa is currently serving as Africa Regional Coordinator for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries and Executive Director for Helping Hands Africa. He is an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazarene and holds a BA from Canadian Nazarene College and an MA from Africa Nazarene University. Cosmos also served as member of both General Board of the Church of the Nazarene International and Religious Advisory Council for the Church of the Nazarene Africa Region.
Prior to this position, Cosmos served as senior pastor of a large multicultural congregation in Harare, Zimbabwe for eight years. Prior to this he had served as College Lecturer and Vice President of the Nazarene Bible College in Zimbabwe and also as Extension Education Director for Central Africa. Cosmos also served as Radio Communications Coordinator for Zimbabwe and was a member of the Religious Advisory Council for Zimbabwe Radio Services for a number of years. Cosmos has coordinated and facilitated compassionate ministries activities in Zimbabwe, working very closely with Canadian Foods Grains Bank, Christian Care and a number of other humanitarian agencies.
Cosmos was appointed as Mission Coordinator for the Church of the Nazarene in Malawi, a position he held for two years. While in Malawi Cosmos also served as President of the Nazarene Theological College of Central Africa and sat on numerous boards both within the church and in the corporate world.
Cosmos is married to Andronica, a Swazi National, and has three children, Nomsa, Daniel and Panashe.
Tom Nees
Tom started Leading to Serve, Inc., in 2007 as a means to advance leadership consulting and coaching in nonprofit and faith-based communities and has been an executive and leadership development consultant/coach in the nonprofit and faith-based world for over 35 years.
Since 1975 as the founding director of the Community of Hope, Inc., a low-income neighborhood organization in Washington, DC., Tom has been involved in identifying as well as creating opportunities for others to serve as volunteers and leaders in their own neighborhoods.
1973 - Founding board member of Jubilee Housing in Washington, DC
1975 - Founder and executive director of the Community of Hope, Inc.
1985 - Developed Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, USA/Canada
1990 - Organized the Institute for Racial Reconciliation
1992 - Created Nazarene Disaster Response, USA/Canada
As the first director of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, USA/Canada he designed organizational development resources, including leadership training for over 200 neighborhood-based organizations now located in every major US and Canada urban center with a combined budget of over $25 million.
In 1995 he became a director at the International Center of the Church of the Nazarene with responsibilities for leadership development for more than 5,000 parish clergy and judicatory leaders.
In 2005 he became an advisory member of FASTEN, the Faith and Service Technical Education Network for the National Crime Prevention Council. FASTEN is funded by the PEW Charitable Trust as part of a $6 million program to provide training and technical assistance to faith-based organizations.
He is a member of the East Coast chapter of Emergent Solutions -- a guild of executive coaches "promoting success at the intersection of Strategy and Leadership Development."