Diane S. Nahabedian joined Helping Hands as the executive director in August, 2020. As a senior level non-profit management professional, she has spent over thirty years working with organizations to enhance their stature through outreach that includes development, marketing/ communications and strategic partnership recruitment efforts, to ensure organizational financial security. Her advancement and marketing/communications successes are based on her ability to brand or re-brand an organization for capital, major gift, and annual campaigns. She works with teams including boards and staff to plan and execute revenue generating events and programs resulting in significant financial and strategic relationship returns.
She is coming to Helping Hands after spending four years at the Rhode Island Zoological Society/Roger Williams Park Zoo as director of marketing and public relations. In that role, she created comprehensive marketing and public relations strategies to increase awareness of the Zoo’s complex systems. Using innovative public relations, marketing, and special events strategy, she substantially increased press stories, number of visitors, outreach to legislators, expanded revenues from corporate sponsorship and special events while also combating animal rights attacks on the organization. As founder of Carrnab Associates, Nahabedian implemented fundraising/public relations programs for a regional theater in United Kingdom, trained CEOs, senior staff, and board on American fund raising techniques, and appropriate speaking style to raise money, and created and implemented marketing/communications and retention campaigns for a Massachusetts based YMCA.
In her career Diane has worked for two YMCA systems including the YMCA of Greater Boston and the YMCA of Greater Providence forging disparate groups of multiple YMCA branches and satellite locations into cohesive, productive, and high functioning results driven teams. At both systems she trained and led new teams on appropriate strategies for crisis communication, fund raising, messaging, and effective uses of social media. She has also spent time in the social service and health care arena raising funds and developing public and media relations campaigns for Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Boston and Central New England Health Alliance.
One of her most rewarding positions was that of homeschool educator of her son Alex, who is now an actor/screenwriter/singer. He was her toughest client ever!!
She received her bachelor of arts from Brandeis University and her master of science from the College of Communication at Boston University. She lives with her husband Paul Carroll, and in their free time they are avid hikers, travelers and explorers.