Founder

Paula Hodges

Having spent the last seventeen years coaching individuals and nonprofits on how to build influence and power, Paula believes we can inspire change by mentoring, coaching and asking new, diverse and entrepreneurial people to take up leadership in nonprofits, NGOs, business and government.

Paula works with individual donors and organizational funders to re-think their philanthropic giving to be more bold, inclusive, and trust-based. She works with funders to strategically layer on political and advocacy funding while building more robust investment strategies for social change. She is also focused on coaching boards and executive leaders through clear, goal-oriented strategic thinking processes that help them prioritize fundraising strategies that position them to retain representative and courageous talent to execute their mission.

Paula is currently working with the national network of progressive donor alliances, Committee on States, as they build a 50-state strategy for consistent and large scale, state-based funding for permanent, progressive and multi racial civic and political infrastructure. She was the founding Executive Director of New Hampshire Progress Alliance, New England's first pooled investment fund for incubating durable, permanent progressive infrastructure. New Hampshire Progress Alliance raised over $1 Million in its first year and is re-shaping the political and investment norms in one of the most powerful national battleground states in the country. 

Anchor Strategies is both a personal and professional passion project and social enterprise rooted in Paula and her team’s desire to build a deep and diverse progressive pipeline across New England. Paula was the founding Chair of New Leaders Council NH and serves on the board of the Economic Progress Institute. She enjoys hiking in the mountains, entertaining friends, taking in New England’s food scene, dabbling in culinary arts, and traveling throughout the country and globe.

Paula is a proud product of public schools from Kindergarten to postgraduate. She became interested in politics while serving as a Congressional Page in high school, appointed by the late Congressman Ike Skelton.

Education

TRUMAN STATE UNIVERSITY
Cultural and Political Advocacy, 2007

UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Peter T. Paul School College of Business and Economics, 2017
MBA

Activities & Affiliations

Development Chair & Board Member, Economic Progress Institute

Facilitator, Women’s Fund of Rhode Island

Member, National Charitable Gift Planners Association

Basecamp Americas Fellow, Forum for the Future, School of Systems Change