Biography

A native North Carolinian and the daughter of immigrants from India, Gita Gulati-Partee is a practical visionary and a tempered radical. She approaches work and life with a sense of purpose and possibility. She founded the national consulting practice OpenSource Leadership Strategies, Inc. to build organizational and leadership capacity for breakthrough social change. Gita brings expertise in asset-based methods of inquiry and engagement, organization and network development, adaptive leadership and change, strategy, and advocacy. She is a program partner of the Wildacres Leadership Initiative and co-manager for the NC Peoples' Coalition for Giving, and she has served as senior consultant to the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest and co-director of Duke University’s annual Institute in Nonprofit Leadership. Gita has published books and articles on advocacy, philanthropy, nonprofit management, education, and racial equity. As senior consultant to the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, a national capacity builder based in Washington, DC with a mission to promote, support, and protect nonprofit advocacy and lobbying in order to strengthen participation in our democratic society and advance charitable missions, Gita worked with the CLPI team to weave the CLPI Action Network by developing Strategic Partnerships with national infrastructure groups and networks; Training Fellows who extend CLPI’s capacity to deliver trainings to nonprofits across the country; the annual Network Retreat for sector strategizing and relationship building; and an interactive curriculum accessible through CLPI’s online Training Resource Center. Gita most recently spearheaded CLPI’s national effort to identify and disseminate “smart and ethical principles and practices” in public interest lobbying. Gita brings a strong and diverse portfolio of experience and training to OpenSource. She was recently the public policy director for the NC Center for Nonprofits – the statewide network, resource center, and advocate for nonprofits in NC – and editor of the Center’s bimonthly Common Ground. Previously, Gita served as a program officer with The Cleveland Foundation, where she conducted strategic grantmaking in arts and education, directed a technology capacity-building project, and managed project evaluations. Earlier, Gita managed special projects for the National Society for Experiential Education and coordinated educational programs for the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Gita earned an MBA with concentrations in entrepreneurship and organizational behavior, as well as a Certificate in Public Policy, from the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. She received her BA and Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Duke University. Gita is a 2001-03 William C. Friday Fellow for Human Relations through the Wildacres Leadership Initiative. Gita most loves to write hand-written notes, read books from her favorite independent bookstore, cook locally grown foods, and feed her friends and family. She and her partner Edd and their dog Chance live happily in Durham, NC.