Principal + Founder

Courtney Mitchell is a social impact strategist and nonprofit leader known for helping organizations navigate moments when the mission is clear — but the path forward is not.

She works with executive teams, boards, and funders to bring alignment where complexity has stalled progress, translating urgency into strategy that people can actually move together. Her work lives at the intersection of leadership, governance, and human dynamics — the places where good intentions often break down, and where clarity matters most.

Before founding Catalyst Impact Solutions, Courtney served as Chief Development Officer for the Travis Manion Foundation, helping guide national growth, strengthen donor trust, and scale impact in a space shaped by grief, service, and responsibility. Across more than 15 years in the social impact sector, she has partnered with organizations advancing education access, veterans’ issues, and community resilience — always with a focus on sustainability, not spectacle.

That orientation was shaped early.

Courtney began her career as an Investigator with Child Protective Services in North Georgia, working at the frontline of family systems under stress. Later, as a New York City Teaching Fellow, she earned a Master’s in Special Education from Pace University while teaching high school students navigating emotional and physical trauma. These early chapters instilled a deep respect for lived experience - and a clear-eyed understanding of how systems succeed or fail the people inside them.

Over time, her work expanded beyond direct service into nonprofit development and organizational leadership, where she found her calling helping institutions do their work better, not louder. After marrying her husband, an active-duty Army service member, Courtney deepened her focus on nonprofit leadership within the veteran and military family space — bringing both professional rigor and personal understanding to the work.

Courtney holds a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels School of Government, is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), and is a graduate of Syracuse University’s V-WISE program through the Institute for Veterans and Military Families. She serves on advisory boards and speaks nationally on veterans’ issues, military family life, and leadership rooted in authenticity.

At her core, Courtney is a builder of trust, of alignment, and of paths forward that hold up over time. Outside of work, she is a proud mom to three spirited boys, an SEC football fan, and someone who believes humor isn’t a distraction from serious work - it’s often how people stay human enough to do it well.

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