Advisors and Partners to Community Supported Film

Project Advisors

Laura Baring-Gould, Artist, Chairwoman of Community Supported Films

Renowned artist Laura Baring-Gold has 20 years of experience in public engagement through art. Ms. Baring-Gould conceived and launched Community Supported Film. Laura Baring-Gould’s work originates from the belief that understandings of place, culture and collaborative potential satisfy deep and buoyant needs. Creating museum/gallery based installations, public artwork and small works of cast bronze, Baring-Gould’s projects employ elemental materials and archetypal forms in ways that catalyze memory and awareness. Her epic sculptural and architectural works are often developed in a highly collaborative context within networks of public and private partnerships to revitalize collective potential and the transformation of place.

Anuradha Desai, Advisor, Organizational Development Expert

Anuradha Desai is the Executive Director of the International Center for Conciliation. She worked as a Senior Advisor for Tifa Foundation and Save the Children in Indonesia. In Boston she has served as the Executive Director of Organizational Development at Citizen Schools, helped launch the Feinstein International Famine Center at Tufts University and worked at Oxfam America for over a decade in various leadership positions. As the Executive Director of the International Center for Conciliation she is responsible for building the financial, organizational and administrative base of the organization while scaling its international programs and building its capacity to work with communities around the world through conciliation. Anuradha graduated with a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was awarded the prestigious Presidential Fellowship. Upon completion of her one-year mid-career program, Anuradha spent a year in Indonesia where she worked as a Senior Advisor for Tifa Foundation and Save the Children. Prior 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. She received her graduate degree in urban planning from the Royal Danish Academy in Denmark and her undergraduate degree in Architecture from the Center on Environment, Planning, and Technology in Ahmedabad, India.

Laura Roper, Ph.D., Advisor, International Development and Humanitarian Aid Consultant

Laura Roper has 25 years of experience in international development and has had senior management positions in or has advised organizations such as Oxfam International, Refugees International, Just Associates, and the Women’s Environment and Development Organization. She has a Ph.D. in political science from University of Pennsylvania and, outside her professional activities, is currently working on a novel about the Mexican American War. Laura Roper is an independent consultant who works with international development and humanitarian organizations in the areas of strategic planning, organizational development, team dynamics, resource development and the creation of applied learning strategies. She has content expertise in advocacy and campaigning on a wide range of development and humanitarian issues, including community development, women’s empowerment and gender-based violence, and appropriate humanitarian response. Here clients include Oxfam International, Refugees International, the International Rescue Committee and Just Associates, among others. She is an adjunct lecturer in the Sustainable International Development Program in the Heller School at Brandeis University.