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Cynthia Falardeau
Senior Director of Membership at WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation
Professional Background
Cynthia Falardeau is a highly esteemed non-profit executive with a robust history of success within the fundraising industry. With over two decades of experience, she has cultivated a deep expertise in various domains including philanthropy, business development, volunteer management, and public speaking. Her inspiring leadership style and commitment to social causes have driven numerous initiatives aimed at improving community welfare and support for education throughout Florida.
Cynthia has held significant leadership positions, most notably as the Chief Executive Officer at The Education Foundation of Indian River County, where she successfully spearheaded programs that enhanced educational opportunities for local students. As the Senior Director of Membership at the WomenCorporateDirectors Foundation, Cynthia leveraged her networking skills to connect influential women leaders, fostering a community that advocates for female representation in corporate governance. Her strategic vision and ability to mobilize resources have been pivotal in achieving fundraising goals and promoting non-profit sustainability.
In addition to her executive roles, Cynthia’s engagement with several community organizations exemplifies her dedication to service. She served as the Immediate Past Chair of the Consortium of Florida Education Foundations from 2010 to 2019, where she guided the organization in advocating for educational funding and policy reforms. Furthermore, her involvement with the Association of Fundraising Professionals as a member of the Board of Directors from 2007 to 2017 showcased her commitment to advancing philanthropy and best practices in fundraising.
Education and Achievements
Cynthia holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from Albion College, where she honed her skills in effective communication—an essential asset in her roles throughout her career. Her academic journey also included a transformative experience through the Semester at Sea program offered by the University of Pittsburgh in the spring of 1986. This unique educational opportunity broadened her global perspective and enhanced her understanding of diverse cultures, which she finds relevance in her philanthropic endeavors.
In recognition of her exceptional contributions to the community and the fields of education and philanthropy, Cynthia has received several accolades. Notably, she was honored as the Inaugural Junior League Woman of the Year, a testament to her impactful work within the organization, particularly during her tenure as President from 2002 to 2003 and Sustainer Co-Chair from 2016 to 2018. Additionally, her acknowledgment as a Trailblazer in 2018 further highlights her influence in enhancing the visibility and effectiveness of women in leadership.
Cynthia's achievements extend beyond local recognition; she has also been recognized as a CNN-iReport Award Finalist in 2010, reflecting her engagement with contemporary media and commitment to influencing public opinion. As a guest columnist for Treasure Coast Newspapers since 2011, she shares her insights and experiences, enriching the community conversation around education and philanthropy.
Community Involvement and Lifestyle
Outside of her professional accomplishments, Cynthia is a vibrant member of her community. She actively participates in the congregation of St. Paul's Church in Vero Beach, where she holds roles as Junior Warden and Clerk on the Vestry Board. Her faith and community involvement are integral to her identity, driving her desire to contribute positively to the lives of others.
Cynthia is also an accomplished athlete, completing two Ironman races—Cozumel in 2014 and Maryland in 2016. As an avid triathlete and runner, she is proud to be a member of the iRaceLikeAGirl triathlon team and the 2021 Team Zoot triathlon team. Her passion for fitness extends beyond competition; she is an enthusiastic triathlon blogger, sharing her journey and experiences through her platform "Sincerely, Cynthia" at gritty2gether.com. This digital space reflects her commitment to inspiring others and providing insights into a healthy, active lifestyle.
Cynthia’s interest in the arts, particularly Broadway, showcases her appreciation for creativity and storytelling, elements she believes can enrich life and community engagement. This combination of professional expertise, community involvement, athletic prowess, and artistic appreciation makes her a uniquely multifaceted individual committed to making a difference.
tags':['Non-profit Executive','Fundraising Industry','Philanthropy','Social Media','Volunteer Management','Public Speaking','Annual Giving','Education Foundations','Leadership Florida','Junior League of Indian River County','Ironman Finisher','Triathlete','Community Involvement','Blogger','Speech Communication','Albion College','Civic Leadership'],
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Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.