Rod Brooks - Senior Consultant

Rod Brooks is a humanitarian, business leader, growth strategist, and passionate influencer who applies his leadership skills and experience to helping organizations create positive social impact. After spending more than 25 years leading organizations in the non-profit sector, Rod knows that non-profit organizations can leverage their vision, passion, technical knowledge, and networks to help solve pressing social issues and believes that scaling social impact drives revenues and organizational growth.

As Senior Consultant with Change Often - Social Innovation Firm, Rod is focused on organizational growth, consulting services to clients, and business development. Previously, as CEO of Convergent Nonprofit Solutions, Rod lead a talented team of professional fundraisers who worked with non-profit organizations to facilitate capital campaigns typically ranging from $1 million to $10 million.

During his 13-year tenure as President and CEO of Rise Against Hunger, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending hunger in our lifetime, Rod expanded the organization’s impact, led the growth of cash and in-kind revenues from $1.4 million to more than $60 million per year, and increased volunteer engagement to more than 500,000 volunteers per year.

Before Rise Against Hunger, Rod was instrumental in creating Exploris (now Marbles Kids Museum), an $85 million interactive museum about the world, where he facilitated the conceptualization, design, fundraising, construction, and operation. While grounded in traditional leadership and fundraising strategies, Rod is passionate about mindful leadership and funding innovations including Results-Based Financing and Social Impact Investing. He has spoken publicly on topics including hunger, international development, and non-profit administration. He has appeared on Bloomberg Television as well as other news programs and has been featured in the UNC-Chapel Hill College of Arts & Sciences magazine. He is active in the community as a member of the Rotary Club of Cary.

Rod holds a BA degree in economics and Spanish from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.