founder & principal.
Melinda Steffy​
Melinda Steffy (she/her) founded Concentric Strategy in 2020. She loves when creative practice and social impact collide, and her 20+ year career in the nonprofit sector has been shaped by her perspective as an artist and educator. She brings innate creativity and nimbleness to her work, making complex ideas come to life through careful process, attention to detail, and abundant empathy.
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Melinda currently serves as Co-Executive Director of CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia, a nonprofit that provides equitable access to management resources for the makers and preservers of culture. She leads the fiscal sponsorship program, which offers an alternate approach to nonprofit management for 90+ cultural initiatives. Her role spans fundraising, finance, operations, legal/compliance, internal systems and policies, and organizational strategy. She led a year-long policy overhaul process to clarify, simplify, and visualize a complex policy manual, and developed a new online platform for user-friendly access to key documents and resources. She has also prioritized community-building across the CultureWorks ecosystem, convening members for cohort-based sessions; hosting the first annual Member Summit; and launching the Lightning Round, a collective fundraising campaign.
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​Previously, Melinda served as Executive Director of music nonprofit LiveConnections, creating culturally relevant, community-centered music education programs, school residencies, and concerts. From start-up phase through significant growth, Melinda built infrastructure and expanded programming, fundraising, marketing, and operations. She spearheaded major projects such as the two-year “A Song Everyone Can Sing” initiative, focused on accessibility for people with disabilities in choral singing, as well as the launch of the Philadelphia Lullaby Project in partnership with Carnegie Hall.
Melinda maintains an active visual art practice and sings with the Chestnut Street Singers. She is a LEADERSHIP Philadelphia alum and Standards for Excellence Pennsylvania Licenced Consultant.
our clients.
Since our founding in 2020, we have provided strategy and communications services for nonprofit organizations in the arts and culture, education, environment, human services, philanthropy, and social justice sectors.
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Our clients have included:
In collaboration with Masters Group Design, we have also provided content strategy, copywriting, and name concepting services for clients including Bryn Mawr College, Equity Arc, FringeArts, Live and Learn, and several small business owners, among others.
“Comprehensive and thoughtful ... I walked in distracted by the constant, painful world noise, but the deliverables and tangible next steps are extremely energizing and create a path forward worth following.”
—Philadelphia Robotics Coalition
IMAGE: Melinda Steffy speaking at an event.
Photo by Conrad Erb Photography.
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Headshot above by KD Morris Photography.