About Us

Roccie has been a nonprofit career executive and consultant since 1980, on three continents
(Europe, North America, Southeast Asia), as Marketing Director, Development Director, and for the past 25 years, as Executive Director. She specializes in nonprofit leadership transitions, grant writing, and board development.
 

A few career highlights follow:

• Director of Marketing for the Statue of Liberty in Paris, France.

• Director of Development for the 7 center wild bird preserves, The Wildfowl Wetlands Trust, UK, where she organized a major donor dinner at the private home (Highgrove) of King Charles, netting $1 million on the night.

• Director of Development for the London Wetland Center initial construction project.

• Executive Director of Guide Dogs of the Desert, where she negotiated a multi-stream/multi-year corporate sponsorship with Natural Balance / Petco pet food ($1 million).

• Executive Director of the Housing Trust of Silicon Valley, where she secured/managed a $2 million grant from State of CA, $4 million annually from Silicon Valley corporations/local authorities, and was responsible for stewardship of $20 million investments for affordable housing.

• Recipient (2016) of President Barack Obama's Lifetime Achievement Award for facilitating nonprofit volunteerism.

Christine, MBA, works in implementation science research at Michigan State University (MSU) where grants writing is a daily requirement. This exposure ignited a passion for grant development and the desire to understand the full life cycle of grants.

 

To become fully immersed and learn all she could, Chris joined the GemX Grant Consulting team to work closely with members and learn the inner workings of developing a proposal from beginning to end.

 

Chris enjoys, and truly excels, in the research portion of the process and applies her skills in a way that truly benefits the team and frees writers up to focus on impactful story telling.

 

At times, it's challenging and scary, but mostly exciting, to work diligently and hope for the best outcome for the client and community but have no promise of that outcome.

 

Chris is truly passionate and thus also works for a non profit in the Flint and Grand Blanc, MI, area called, "Xceptional Heroes" and marries the link between Xceptional Heroes and GemX Grant Consulting for grant assistance, when it's mutually beneficial for both organizations.  

In addition to consulting with GemX Grant Consulting, Steve supports interdisciplinary research teams at the University of Michigan (UM).

 

He develops striking, accessible and impactful visuals that help grant proposals stand out by communicating need and project design in a clear way that helps to secure funding.

 

Previously, Steve was an illustrator and designer at the College of Engineering (UM), where he worked with the communication & marketing team to tell award-winning stories through animation, infographics, exhibits, mixed reality and more.

 

Steve has been a creative professional for 25 years and enjoys making music and keeping up with the latest in AI art.