Carla Y. Lewis is an American nonprofit and business executive who has built a notable career leading organizations through significant periods of change and substantial growth. An accomplished and growth-focused leader with extensive experience revitalizing organizations, Lewis has an established track record in key leadership functions that are instrumental in driving success in multiple areas.
She has been a central figure in devising and implementing organizational policies and procedures, managing finance activities, developing strategic plans, directing management teams, and overseeing operations to drive organizational achievement of goals and objectives. Lewis is known in the nonprofit and business sectors for her ability to lead diverse, cross-functional teams and harness their individual talents to collectively contribute to organizational goals.
In 2021, Atlanta-based Environmental Community Action, Inc. tapped Lewis to become its Executive Director. In this role, she leads day-to-day operations, oversees financial operations, fundraising, overall programs, and solidifies organizational sustainability through implementation of donor management practices, strengthening community partnerships, and increasing the organization’s staff and volunteer base.
Using her proven success in areas such as operational planning, fundraising operations, revenue generation, risk management, and managing cross-functional teams, Lewis is leading the organization in building a culture of philanthropy for Environmental Community Action. Lewis leads a team in cultivating and soliciting philanthropic partners, municipal partners, community-based partners, businesses, foundations, and forming strategic relationships with other funding organizations.
From 2019 to 2021, Lewis was Director of Operations for Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, where she established and led highly qualified team members for heading and completing all bottom-line factors, including company vision, long-range strategic planning, fundraising, program development and execution, and branding and communications.
She oversaw preparing and allocating annual operations and program budgets to assure completion of routine activities on time while minimizing costs and expenditures. Adept at streamlining operations for improving efficiencies, overall research, communications, program development, special event planning and implementation, and other support tasks resulted in remarkable improvement under Lewis’s leadership. She exceptionally improved the fiscal budget, moving it upwards from $500K to over $2.6M, resulting in optimizing new programs and services.
Prior to this role, she was Chief Executive Director for the Nevada Community Associates Inc. in Las Vegas. From 2008 to 2017, she headed financial operations that included setting long-term financial plans, ensuring accounting compliance, and planning for internal capacity, cash flow needs, and investment in growth. Under her leadership, she strategically re-energized donors, clients, influencers, employees, and other key stakeholders, resulting in attaining the success of the enterprise.
Lewis and her team also prepared and implemented strategic plans for obtaining revenue, systems, and human resources goals in association with board, staff, and volunteers. This ensured local, state, and federal filings; financial and programmatic audits, risk management, human resources requirements, and general staff management for attaining desired targets were achieved.
Prior to joining Nevada Community Associates, Lewis was Regional Director of Operations for Imagine Schools in Las Vegas. From 2006 to 2008, her oversight resulted in accelerated the growth of the institute through strategically fostering productive and long-lasting relations with non-profit and social services agencies, government, the healthcare community, local media, higher education, legal, philanthropic, and financial communities.
Lewis developed and allocated annual operating plans for the region and collaborated with the Regional Vice President to synchronize annual plans and cross-regional initiatives as per set policies. She led the organization to perform exceptionally in communications and identifying and attaining new opportunities with the private sector and intergovernmental agencies.
Throughout her career, Lewis has received recognition for building and strengthening funding sources, successful one-on-one solicitation with major donors and securing private foundations, giving campaigns, corporations, faith groups, and in-kind support. She is also widely recognized for her ability to lead organizations in diverse and fast-paced external marketplace environments.
Lewis holds a Bachelor of Art in Political Science from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Ga.
