Leanne Bergey, Editor

Leanne is the driving force behind dot.orgEssentials. She is dedicated to educating nonprofits about the Internet and helping them appropriately integrate it into their communications plans.

As Editor, Leanne makes sure that each article and resource included in dot.orgEssentials is chockfull of practical advice for nonprofit organizations. Each month, Leanne writes an in-depth feature article focusing on the given theme. Leanne includes advice and tips that are relevant to nonprofit organizations - and goals that are in their reach.

Leanne, a recognized leader in Internet communications and strategic planning, is the President of MRB Communications, Inc., a full-service firm that has been providing nonprofit organizations with user-friendly, appropriate Internet solutions since 1996. Leanne embraces any opportunity to share her knowledge and expertise with nonprofit professionals. For 10 years, she has been helping them make sense of the Internet through seminars, workshops, and private consultations.

Her innovations include creating customized databases; developing an Internet diploma program for transitioning professionals; and developing a trademarked suite of products (the Verve Suite of Solutions) that improve and enhance Internet interactivity.

Dottie Schindlinger, Assistant Editor

Prior to joining Verve in September 2005, Dottie worked for more than five years with the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University. As the Center’s first-ever Director of Marketing, Dottie was responsible for a complete brand redesign for the Center, including a new logo, new name, and new graphic identities for all of the Center’s publications. She introduced the Center to email marketing, increasing the Center’s program enrollments by more than 20% in the first year. She also created the Center’s first strategic marketing plan, and helped to grow the Center’s market reach from the Philadelphia region to include all of southeastern PA, southern NJ, and northern DE.

Prior to her marketing role, Dottie served for three years as the Center’s Director of Educational Programs, where she developed the Center’s certificate programs in Board Leadership and Fundraising, and was responsible for growing the Certificate in Nonprofit Management. In 2001, Dottie also served as Adjunct Faculty of La Salle University’s Communication Department, where she taught Public Speaking.

Before joining the Nonprofit Center in 2000, Dottie spent six years with the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, a private nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, where she developed state-wide humanities programs for Pennsylvania's adult public. In her current volunteer work, Dottie is a Trustee and Major Gifts Chair of the Alice Paul Institute based in Mt. Laurel, NJ. She is Co-President/Co-Founder of Philadelphia’s Young Nonprofit Leaders, a network of young and emerging nonprofit professionals in the Philadelphia region.

Dottie received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, and holds Certificates in Nonprofit Management and Board Leadership from the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University.

Mike Scappa, Production Editor

A talented programmer with knowledge of many languages, Mike is in charge of the technical side of dot.orgEssentials.

Mike is fluent in all key languages including object-oriented programming in Perl/CGI, PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion, and XML. He has significant experience in Web server administration on Linux/Unix and Windows NT platforms.

With more than six years of experience in Web development, Mike has strong experience in relational database design for Windows & Unix platforms and his skills include new applications development, ecommerce, and encryption. Mike is Cisco CNA certified and part of Microsoft’s operating systems beta testing teams.

At Verve Internet Solutions, Mike is proud of his work on the Verve Suite of Solutions – especially because each solution surpassed anything the team had planned. He thinks the best thing about these tools is that they were developed with open-source software, which means they are economical to run.

Mike continuously amazes the Verve Internet Solutions staff with his innovations and exceptional problem-solving skills.