About Us

FindALeader.org is designed to assist you in your search for your next executive (CEO, ED, Development Director, COO, CFO, etc.).

Our team of nonprofit administration and human resource professionals can assist you in managing and conducting your search, in those instances when you cannot or prefer not to engage the services of a recruitment firm.

FindALeader.org is a brand of SST Nonprofit Services, a service line of SST Productions, Inc. a California public benefit corporation that has been in operation since 2007.  As a nonprofit organization ourselves, we can understand the intricacies of a mission-based organization serving the multiple “bottom lines” of public benefit, sustainability, and community/media support.

The principals of SST Nonprofit Services are Marc Haupert and Kurt Swanson, who combined have over 65 years of nonprofit leadership experience.  This experience base offers unsurpassed opportunity for smaller or mid-size nonprofit organizations. You can benefit from the experience of these and other consultants, which creates efficiency in operations and achievement of agreed outcomes.

Marc created his first management support organization in Wisconsin in 1980, primarily serving performing arts organizations. It soon expanded to serving all types of nonprofits, and small businesses.  The trajectory of SST has followed a similar path, starting as a management and producing entity for performing arts, and now branching out to serving a wide array of nonprofit organizations.

When you secure the services of SST Nonprofit Services, your organization will receive the benefit of a long-experienced management perspective to augment your search function. Our principals have facilitated dozens of successful searches for executive staff.

FindALeader principals Marc Haupert and Kurt Swanson are aided by a select group of affiliated professionals. Below are more extensive biographies:

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Marc Haupert

Marc has over forty years’ experience in organization, management, and administration of nonprofits of all kinds. He is adept at bringing organizations into alignment with their stated vision and mission utilizing his strong negotiation and interpersonal skills. His executive direction has consistently been coupled with direct involvement in private and public fund development tasks.

In 2004, Marc formed Marc Haupert and Associates, a Los Angeles based consulting firm that specializes in executive management, strategic planning, program development, branding, fund development, systems development and outcomes measurement in the nonprofit sector. He has a strong background in issue advocacy, evaluation and supervision of government contracts, as well as arts management. He has a thorough understanding of care and prevention services for diverse communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

Marc also has worked with technology applications for nonprofits, from the first IBM PC to the latest cloud and SaaS (software as a service) innovations.

Professional Nonprofit Work Experience:

• Interim Executive Director, FACT – Family, Adult and Child Therapies
• Executive Director, West Hollywood Library Foundation
• Interim Executive Director, California Faith for Equality
• Interim Executive Director, Getty House Foundation
• Interim Executive Director, Heart Touch Project (Santa Monica, CA)
• Interim Executive Director, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) for Riverside County, Inc.
• Interim Development Director, American Red Cross Greater Los Angeles Chapter
• Interim Volunteer Officer, American Red Cross Greater Los Angeles Chapter
• Interim Executive Director, CASA of Los Angeles
• Executive Director, Los Angeles Shanti Foundation
• Executive Director, Desert AIDS Project, Inc.
• Executive Director, Chicago House and Social Service Agency, Inc.
• Administrator, Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Inc.
• President, Arts Services Associates of Milwaukee, Inc.

Educational Background:

• College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA
• University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
• Management Institute – University of Wisconsin

Community service experience also includes:

Haupert was named “Man of the Year” by Christopher Street West (L.A.) in 2003, and in 2004 received a proclamation from the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County for his service to the County. Past service included: President, Wisconsin Professional/Commercial Theatre Association; Board member (Treasurer) AIDS Walk Chicago; Executive Committee member, Service Providers Council of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago; member, AIDS Advisory Council for the City of Chicago; member, TB Task Force of Chicago and Cook County. Appointee to the State of California Office of AIDS Comprehensive Care Working Group; Co-chair of (County-appointed) Inland Empire HIV Planning Council; board, LIFE Lobby; Treasurer, CAEAR (Cities Advocating Emergency AIDS Relief) Coalition, Washington, DC; Gubernatorial appointee, California HIV Planning Group; Supervisorial District Three appointed Commissioner on Los Angeles County HIV/AIDS Commission

Additional Information:

Marc has dedicated his professional and volunteer life to nonprofit organizations, beginning in 1970, when he organized his home town for the first Earth Day. After his time at the University of Wisconsin, he opened a nonprofit bookstore featuring fine arts and small press publications by local artists and writers. He was active in poverty and anti-discrimination movements for communities of color. He developed a Cultural Center that also housed a small international touring experimental theatre company (Theatre X, of which Willem Dafoe is the best known alumnus). Haupert was named managing director of the company, and in 1979 founded his own management support organization, Arts Services Associates, which provided management and booking services for twenty performing organizations in the upper Midwest. In 1984 as a volunteer, he founded the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, Inc., serving as president of the board for five years. While directing Chicago House and Social Service Agency, he lent significant advocacy and programmatic guidance to the development of the federal Ryan White CARE Act. He has authored manuals, reports and training curricula at the regional and national levels.

Marc’s long affiliation with The Third Sector Company since 2004 further expands his network of professionals. Using (under license) the materials developed by Third Sector Company with the contributions of dozens of nonprofit professionals, we can offer you a tried and true route to find your next executive.

Kurt J. Swanson

Kurt has over 25 years of experience managing the business and programmatic priorities of arts, nonprofit and social service organizations in the Midwest and California. He has been a successful local business owner in real estate services and in theatrical facility management and production.

Kurt most recently served as Operations Director of a major service organization for foster children in LA County. Previously, he had been retained as interim full-charge Operations Director of a statewide advocacy organization.

Other professional positions and affiliations since 1990 have included: Managing Artistic Director of a nonprofit theatrical production organization that mounts its own arts events in the US and internationally; President, Radio and Tea Productions, a commercial theatre and rental performance space in Toluca Lake, CA, offered to educators, artists and producers for performances; President and Broker, Homes Insight, a Toluca Lake-based boutique real estate firm serving the entertainment community and general clientele throughout the greater Los Angeles region and Coachella Valley; and a Real Estate Agent, Broker and trainer for firms in California. Kurt was in administration at AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, the largest AIDS service organization in the world, with international headquarters in Los Angeles. Previously he served as Executive Director of Animal Samaritans SPCA, in the Coachella Valley of California; Director of Administration of Michael’s House, a drug/alcohol recovery center in Palm Springs; Administrative Director of the AIDS Pastoral Care Network in Chicago, and Finance Manager for Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.

Kurt has served as a volunteer, board member and founder of multiple voluntary and charitable organizations in his career and throughout his entire life.

Kurt has served as senior staff to organizations in the Midwest and West Coast and has held human resource responsibility for organizations both large and small. He holds a California Real Estate Broker’s License and is certified as a HAFA (Home Affordable Forclosure Alternative) specialist, a Certified Short Sales Specialist, and Senior Real Estate Specialist.  He has achieved the Certified Associate in Human Resources (CAHR) certification, reflecting his dedication and education as a human resources expert.