My Nonprofit Journey: Jeanette Shutay

My name is Jeanette Shutay.  I am one of the team’s newest members, having joined Charity Navigator in the summer of 2022 as the Chief Data Technology Officer. My primary responsibilities include designing the organization’s strategy around data, technology, and data science to best execute our mission. As part of that, I lead the engineering team (those behind the scenes aligned with our website’s design, coding, and overall functionality) and their development efforts and build our data science function to support products and programs. 

Before joining Charity Navigator, my professional career has been mostly within the private sector and within higher education, although I have done a significant amount of consulting with nonprofits around assessment, program design, and program evaluation. I have over 20 years of experience applying advanced analytics and data science concepts to solve complex problems across multiple disciplines and industries. Over the past seven-plus years, I’ve been focusing on building out data science and engineering teams and developing predictive and prescriptive analytics software using machine learning, AI, and Cloud platforms at scale. 

I decided to transition from the private for-profit industry to the nonprofit sector because I have been wanting to find ways to make more of an impact on society. I am passionate about the work that the nonprofit sector does, and I am honored to be able to help support them through the work that we do at Charity Navigator. The primary difference between working within the for-profit and nonprofit sectors is the availability of resources where nonprofits experience more significant budget constraints. Consequently, nonprofits require more innovative ways of addressing business models and scaling. The best thing about working for Charity Navigator is that I go to work every day knowing that I have the potential to make a positive impact in the world! 

On a more personal note, I am incredibly passionate about animals and the environment, and love to learn. Besides having a Ph.D I completed a GIS certificate with Pennsylvania State University in December 2021 and will earn a Master’s degree in Biology focusing on environmental conservation in December 2022. In December 2020 and July 2021, as a complement to my studies, I  traveled to Kenya  and this past June visited Costa Rica. Finding solutions to help with biodiversity loss, which include solving human problems such as extreme poverty, injustices, and anthropogenic causes of climate change. 

Below are pictures from a safari I took in Kenya at the Maasai Mara National Reserve and from a trip to Costa Rica. 

In my spare time, I love to jog, watch sports on TV, watch my younger son play baseball, hang out with friends and family, and listen to music. I have two sons (14 and 19), three dogs, and lots of fish! The featured photo is of me with one of my dogs, Duke.

Although I have only been at Charity Navigator a few months, I very much enjoy the culture, the people I work with, and the mission. I have the ability to leverage my strengths while learning and growing professionally. I look forward to what we will bring to the nonprofit sector in the months and years to come!