Immaculée Ilibagiza
Author
"Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust"
Immaculée Ilibagiza is a living example of faith put into action. Immaculée's life was transformed dramatically during the 1994 Rwandan genocide where she and seven other women spent 91 days huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor's house. Immaculée entered the bathroom a vibrant, 115-pound university student with a loving family - she emerged weighing just 65 pounds to find her entire family had been brutally murdered (with the exception of one brother who had been studying out of the country).
Immaculée credits her salvage mostly to prayer and to a set of rosary beads given to her by her devout Catholic father prior to going into hiding. Anger and resentment about her situation were literally eating her alive and destroying her faith, but rather than succumbing to the rage that she felt, Immaculée instead turned to prayer. She began to pray the rosary as a way of drowning out the negativity that was building up inside her. Immaculée found solace and peace in prayer and began to pray from the time she opened her eyes in the morning to the time she closed her eyes at night. Through prayer, she eventually found it possible, and in fact imperative, to forgive her tormentors and her family's murderers.
Immaculée utilized her time in that tiny bathroom to teach herself English with only The Bible and a dictionary; once freed she was able to secure a job with the United Nations. In 1998, Immaculée immigrated to the United States where she continued her work with the UN. During this time she shared her story with co-workers and friends, who were so impacted they insisted she write it down in book form. Immaculée's first book, Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (Hay House) was released in March of 2006 and quickly became a New York Times Best Seller.
Immaculée's story has also been made into a documentary titled "The Diary of Immaculée." She has appeared in numerous media including 60 Minutes, CNN, EWTN, The Aljazeera Network, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsday, and many other domestic and international outlets.
Immaculée recently hosted a documentary titled "Ready to Forgive, An African Story of Grace," a project sponsored by The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The film focuses on the Acholi people of Northern Uganda and their desire to forgive their tormentors. "Ready to Forgive" has been broadcasted on NBC and the Hallmark Channel.
Immaculée recently signed a contract with MPower Pictures to produce a major motion picture about her story.
Today Immaculée is regarded as one of world's leading speakers on peace, faith, and forgiveness. She has shared her universal message with world dignitaries, school children, multinational corporations, churches, and at many conferences. Immaculée works hard to spread her message and to raise money for her Left to Tell Charitable Fund which directly benefits the children orphaned by the genocide.
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Sr. Georgette Lehmuth, OSF
President/CEO
National Catholic Development Conference
Sr. Georgette Lehmuth, OSF has been President/CEO of NCDC since 2001 and served as the administrator of the organization for one year prior to her permanent appointment. In 2007, Sr. Georgette was named for the second consecutive year by the Nonprofit Times as on one of the "Power and Influence Top 50" in the nonprofit sector. Previously, Sr. Georgette was elected to the Board of Directors of NCDC and served her religious community, the Franciscan Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, as Development Director, Director of Communications, Director of Justice and Peace, Director of On-Going Formation and as a member of the leadership team. She has served on numerous boards and committees for organizations such as NCDC, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), Religious Involved in Social Concerns, Planning Committee of Women Religious Collaborating, Habitat for Humanity, St. Francis Healthcare Centre, Campaign for Human Development, and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Sr. Georgette also has experience in education and administration and is a trained facilitator.
Sr. Georgette served as a member of the Independent Sector's Public Policy Committee and represented NCDC on the Noncash Coalition. She also remains actively involved in postal reform issues and recently testified before the Postal Regulatory Commission on behalf of the charitable sector. Sister also collaborates with other leadership groups within the Catholic community and has spoken at the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM), the National Association for Treasurers of Religious Institutes (NATRI), and the Catholic Charities USA Ministry Conference. She will be speaking at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in 2008. She has also spoken at the Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and at the Independent Sector conference.
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Kerry A. Robinson
Executive Director
National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management
Member
Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities
FADICA Board of Directors
Kerry Robinson is the executive director of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management which is dedicated to promoting excellence and best practices in the management, finances and human resource development of the Catholic Church in the U.S. The Leadership Roundtable exists to strengthen the temporal affairs of the Church by harnessing the expertise and resources of Catholic senior-level executives from all sectors (including the financial, corporate, governmental, philanthropic, charitable, judicial and educational) in service to the Church.
Ms. Robinson is a member of the Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities in Wilmington, Delaware and a member of the Board of Directors of FADICA (Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities).
Ms. Robinson has served as a trustee on the national boards of the Education for Parish Service Foundation in Washington, D.C.; the Gregorian University Foundation in New York; the National Catholic AIDS Network in San Francisco; and the Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) in Washington, D.C. From 1995 to 2007 she served on the national committee for the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops' Catholic Campaign for Human Development and is a trustee of the National Pastoral Life Center in New York. Currently she serves on the advisory boards of the Center for the Study of Church Management at Villanova University, the Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry at Boston College and Busted Halo: Paulist Young Adult Ministry.
She is the founding editor of The Catholic Funding Guide: A Directory of Resources for Catholic Activities, first published by FADICA in 1998. She has been an advisor to grantmaking foundations, charitable nonprofits and family philanthropies since 1990.
Ms. Robinson served as the Director of Development for Saint Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale University and led a $73 million fundraising drive to expand and endow the Chapel's intellectual and spiritual ministry and to construct a Catholic student center on Yale's campus.
She spent two years in London working for the Directory of Social Change, an organization dedicated to providing information and training for the nonprofit sector in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Ms. Robinson is a frequent writer and speaker on the subjects of philanthropy, development and the Catholic Church. In 1988 Ms. Robinson received a B.A. degree from Georgetown University, and in 1994 received an M.A.R. degree from Yale Divinity School. She and her husband, Dr. Michael Cappello, Professor of Medicine and Director of the World Fellows Program at Yale University, have two children, Christopher and Sophia.
