Meet Our Team
These are some of the people who make it happen day-in and day-out. The efforts and dedication of our staff is one of the reasons we’re a unifying, driving force for lasting change.
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Jennifer Sampson
McDermott-Templeton President and CEO
Jennifer Hilton Sampson is the President & CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, the largest nongovernmental funder of programs to improve education, income and health in North Texas. Jennifer’s vision for United Way includes integrating emerging fundraising markets, strategically incorporating innovative uses of technology, and strengthening collaborative partnerships throughout the region. Since her appointment as CEO and president in September 2011, Jennifer has built community confidence in United Way’s mission and impact priorities, and achieved unprecedented results in resource development. This catalytic approach to philanthropy is yielding organizational capacity, strategic value and efficiency for the donor community, while creating lasting social change. A committed community advocate, Jennifer has served in leadership roles for numerous organizations in the North Texas community throughout her career. She serves on the local boards of the Commit! Partnership, City Year Dallas, The Hockaday School and the Business and Community Advisory Council of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. She is a member of the Young President's Organization, the International Women's Forum Dallas, the Dallas Assembly, and the Dallas Charter 100. Jennifer is also a sustaining member of the Junior League of Dallas. Jennifer was named the Women’s Council of Dallas County’s Woman of the Year, Dallas Regional Chamber Leadership Dallas Distinguished Alumnus, and was recognized as one of the youngest recipients of the Baylor Distinguished Alumni Award. Jennifer and her husband, Edward, have one son, Hilton.
Susan Hoff
Chief Impact & Strategy Officer
Susan Hoff serves as Chief Impact, Strategy, and Operations Officer for United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. Before joining the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas team in 2009, Susan was the CEO and President of ChildCareGroup and prior to that was the Executive Director of Educational First Steps.
In addition to senior leadership roles, Susan’s professional experience includes the positions of teacher, child care center director, and parent educator. She is a highly sought after trainer and public speaker, has developed curricula and educational publications for children and adults, and is an accomplished fund developer. Susan is a well-known children's advocate at the local, state, and national levels. She is the co-founder, with Margery Miller, of the Great Girls Network, a platform for women from all walks of life to lift up and inspire one another.
Susan serves on the boards of Early Matters Dallas, the Texas Partnership for Out of School Time (TXPOST) and the Essilor Vision Foundation – Americas. She was appointed by Mayor Mike Rawlings to the board of Workforce Solutions Dallas County in 2012, 2015, 2018 and is a past president of the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children and past board chair of Social Venture Partners Dallas, First3Years, and the Jr. League of Richardson.
Janice Harissis
Chief Financial Officer
Janice Harissis serves as the Chief Financial Officer for United Way Metropolitan Dallas (UWMD) and United Way Foundation Metropolitan Dallas. Prior to joining UWMD she held various leadership roles in finance, accounting and operations at Texas Instruments, Inc. She is a CPA and served as business unit controller, Asia Region Audit Mgr in Shanghai, China and as Vice President and Corporate Audit Director for the company.
She served as executive sponsor for TI’s global Finance & Operations training program and was a member of the TI Corporate Compliance Committee, Ethics Committee, and Cybersecurity Committee.
Prior to joining TI, Janice was the Operations Site Manager for KES Systems in Midland, Texas with responsibility for manufacturing operations, IT, purchasing and human resources.
Janice served on the Board of the Texas Women’s Foundation as Audit Committee Chair and has served on the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas Audit Committee and Chair of the Strategic Controls sub-committee. She previously served on the Board of High Tech High Heels.
Ashley Brundage
Executive Director of Housing Stability and Senior Vice President, Community Impact
Ashley joined United Way of Metropolitan Dallas in 2007. She leads the team responsible for making measurable contributions to the North Texas community’s ten-year goals through strategic investments and programming. Through her leadership, Ashley ensures that United Way's community impact work holistically addresses community issues through targeted programming and systems level collaborations to achieve high-quality results.
Candace Gardner
Senior Vice President, Human Resources & Building Services
Candace Gardner joined UWMD in 1996 and has spent her tenure working in Operations, on the Human Resources and Finance teams, at United Way. She leads the people function by providing leadership and direction in the areas of Human Resources and payroll with over 15 years of progressive experience.
Candace is committed to delivering a best in class employee culture and works closely with the senior leadership team to plan and execute people strategies. She is an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management.
Greg Mangum
Vice President, Economic Mobility
Greg Mangum serves as the Vice President of Economic Mobility at United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and oversees the organization’s focus on improving education and income outcomes for low income families. He leads the development and implementation of integrated strategies to improve educational attainment, career pathways, and financial capability. Greg manages grantmaking and partnership efforts to support new and existing programs that provide basic needs, help people build savings, credit and assets, provide job skills training, and help students improve their academic success and be prepared for college and career opportunities.
Melissa Bair
Vice President, Corporate Relations and Engagement
Melissa joined UWMD in August 2018 after leading the philanthropy and community efforts for seven years with the Major League Soccer club, FC Dallas. Before this, she spent seven years with the National Rural Funders Collaborative (NRFC) where she worked to create self-sufficient families in rural communities of color around the country. She’s a proud Texas A&M Aggie that enjoys being with her two kids, Emma (16) and Jack (13).
Stephanie Mace
Vice President, Strong Communities
My role to identify ways United Way can work with local and statewide partners to collectively push for changes to public policies at local, state or federal level. Additionally, I try to educate individuals and nonprofits on how to engage elected officials in their work and encourage them to join in our advocacy campaigns.
Abigail Sharp
Vice President, Early Childhood Initiatives
Abigail Sharp has been in the nonprofit early childhood field for over fifteen years. She holds two master’s degrees, one in community mental health counseling and the other in early childhood education. Her professional roles have included teaching, counseling and nonprofit administration.
Angela Floyd
Vice President IT & Gift Processing
Angela Floyd, Senior Director of Gift Processing & eBusiness Operations, leads the team responsible for processing all donations received by United Way of Metropolitan Dallas. In this role, she works to ensure that donations received by the organization are handled in a way that honors donor intent while maintaining strong financial controls. With 25 years of service to United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Angela has an extensive knowledge of the organization and has won multiple awards from industry leaders and peers for maximizing use of technology to transform organizational processes.
Danielle Ingold
Senior Director, Corporate and Foundation Giving
Danielle joined United Way in June 2000 as a member of the Community Impact team after graduating from Cornell University with a Bachelors degree in Policy Analysis and Management. Over the next 13 years, Danielle took on various roles in the Community Impact Department with the most significant being the Senior Director of Special Initiatives and Projects from 2007 to 2013. For the past six years, Danielle has been a senior member of the Resource Development team where she is responsible for managing a donor portfolio of corporate, family, and community foundations in order to increase donor engagement within United Way’s Impact work.
Dean Jenks
Senior Director, Corporate Relations
Born in El Paso, Texas – Graduated from Portland State University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration- Management- spent last 15 years as a Regional Sales Director for major media companies, most recently with Belo Media- 1 year (new) to non-profit.
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