Anuradha Desai earned a master’s degree in Public Administration at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, graduating in June 2007. Before coming to Harvard, Anuradha served as the Executive Director of Organizational Development at Citizen Schools, an innovative program that is revolutionizing the field of out-of-school education across the United States. In her eight years at Citizen Schools, as a Founding Leadership Team member, and as the Executive Director of Organizational Development, Anuradha helped to build the capacity of the newly formed organization, led the national growth, development and fundraising activities for Citizen Schools, and maintained senior-level relationships with institutional and individual supporters, including the Board of Directors. Anuradha helped the organization to grow its annual fundraising revenues from $850,000 to $13 million and spearheaded a $25 million multi-year investment campaign. In the recent growth plan, Anuradha worked with the CEO to make Citizen Schools a $35 million per year operation by 2010. Throughout her tenure, Anuradha served on the seven member Senior Executive Team.

Prior to joining Citizen Schools, Anuradha served for two years as the Director of Special Projects at Tufts University’s Center on Hunger, Poverty, and Nutritional Policy and the Feinstein International Famine Center. While at Tufts, Anuradha played a key role in building the organizational capacity of the Famine Center and helped it to become a well-known center for research, training, and learning in the field of famine and humanitarian assistance.

Anuradha worked at Oxfam America for over a decade before joining Tufts. At Oxfam she served in various leadership positions, including as an elected staff representative to the Board of Directors. She began her tenure as the Director of Crafts Marketing, and quickly moved up to become the Special Events Director and then the Director of Major Gifts.

In the last seven years of her tenure at Oxfam America, Anuradha led the Major Gifts Unit and raised annually $2.4 million. As the Director of Major Gifts, she solicited and secured several six and seven figure gifts from Oxfam’s individual donors. During this time, she developed a successful Sustainable Development for El Salvador campaign which raised $3 million. Anuradha led several donor delegations, including trips to Cambodia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Senegal and Vietnam. She also launched a campaign to promote Oxfam’s global work with women. Anuradha regularly gave presentations on sustainable development to Oxfam’s various constituencies, including the media, donors, students, and policy makers.

Anuradha served as a board member for Grassroots International for six years until 2003. Currently, she serves on the board of the Massachusetts Service Alliance and as an advisor to Root Capital (formerly Ecologic Finance) and Circuelo de Mujeres. She regularly speaks at conferences and offers training to nonprofit audiences on global issues of sustainable social and economic development.