CEP Staff

Cristina Rodríguez de La Mar, Executive Director

Cristina Rodríguez de La Mar, the CEP Executive Director, brings extensive experience with local, national and international social-change organizations — and has worked extensively with American Indian, Native Pacific Islander, and Chicano/Latino communities. Her training includes: University teaching; teambuilding and facilitation in communities, tribes, prisons, and for agencies; and a strong foundation of youth and adult prevention/intervention and advocacy work. She has designed, developed and managed a wide array of social service, health, education, and prevention/intervention programs and agencies — both community-based and governmental. She also holds an M.A., and Ph.D. (A.B.D.) from Stanford University, with studies in community-based organizing, social movements, and ethnic-politics.

Laurie McWhorter, Lead Consultant

Laurie McWhorter is the lead consultant for the Civic Engagement Project, focusing on technical assistance and capacity building, grant support, and sustainability. For the six years prior she coordinated The City of Santa Cruz Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women. She directed and worked as lead trainer (over eight years) for the Santa Cruz County Chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI). Ms. McWhorter’s work has focused on building coalitions between diverse groups of people; leadership development; working with the intersecting roles of staff, volunteers, Commissioners, and elected officials; program development and management, and training. Her experience ranges from public and private sectors to non-profit and grassroots community work. Ms. McWhorter holds a BA from the University of California Santa Cruz with honors in Community Studies.

Janice Edwards, Project Associate

As the CEP Project Associate, Janice Edwards works with all aspects of the project including coordinating events and meetings, communicating project developments and disseminating highlights of the work being done by the eight CEP partner counties. Janice holds a Bachelors degree in Intercultural Communication and German from Rutgers University and has a California Mediators Certification. She is active as a community mediator and peer counselor in her community.

CEP Video Team

NonProfit Communications, a San Francisco-based video production company, handles video and photo documentation of community events on behalf of CEP in CEP partner counties. Jim Bracken and Rene Perez-Garza have worked with CEP staff since the inception of the project and have delivered four exceptional video stories that depict community leaders in action in their communities. These stories have been packaged together with a CEP Overview video in the bilingual (English/Spanish) CEP Community Outreach Video Toolkit, available free of charge from CEP while supplies last. NonProfit Communications can be reached at (415) 255-2432.

CEP Evaluation Team

For evaluation and documentation of civic engagement practices in the CEP partner counties, CEP depends on the skills and expertise of Harder+Company Community Research, a comprehensive social research and consulting firm with offices in San Francisco and Davis, California.

Founded in 1986, Harder+Company serves regional and national clients in nonprofit community-based organizations, state and local government, and philanthropy. A major factor in choosing Harder+Company as the CEP Evaluation team was the company’s multicultural approach to program evaluations. Harder+Company has 25 professional staff with diverse backgrounds, language abilities, education and training.

The CEP Evaluation Team is led by Paul Harder, President of Harder+Company Community Research. Paul is a nationally recognized expert in social research with over 25 years' experience in research and consulting for a broad range of funders and community service agencies.