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David Jernigan
President & CEO at Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta
Professional Background
David Jernigan is a highly esteemed leader in the field of education and non-profit management, currently serving as the President and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta. In this pivotal role, David oversees the operations of over 20 clubs, providing essential support and community resources to more than 3,000 children on a daily basis. His commitment to empowering youth and fostering their development underscores his extensive career in educational leadership and advocacy.
Before his transition into non-profit management, David dedicated 20 years to K-12 education, during which he held significant positions that greatly contributed to the enhancement of educational outcomes in Atlanta. Most notably, he served as the Deputy Superintendent for Atlanta Public Schools, where he led the Schools & Academics division. His leadership at the district level was marked by innovative programming and strategic initiatives designed to improve student performance and community engagement.
In addition to his role in public education, David previously held the position of Executive Director for KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools. There, he played a crucial role in expanding the KIPP network from two schools to eight, greatly increasing the access to quality education for children in the metro Atlanta area. His tenure as Founding Principal of KIPP WAYS Academy from 2003 to 2008 was a testament to his vision for youth education, establishing a successful school aimed at helping students achieve their academic goals.
David's journey in education began in 2000 when he moved to Atlanta to participate in the esteemed Teach For America program. His first teaching assignment was at M. Agnes Jones Elementary School, where he laid the groundwork for his impactful career in education and community service. David's work in the classroom has left a lasting legacy, impacting countless children and families in the Atlanta area.
Education and Achievements
David's educational background is exceptional and reflects his dedication to lifelong learning and leadership development. He is a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Business Administration and Management. David's commitment to excellence was recognized when he was awarded the Business School’s 2003 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award, one of numerous accolades throughout his career.
Further enhancing his qualifications, David pursued advanced studies, obtaining a Masters in Educational Leadership and Administration from National Louis University in Chicago. He also undertook the Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management Executive Training at Harvard Business School, equipping him with essential skills for leadership in the non-profit sector. Additionally, David received an Early Childhood Education Teaching Certificate through the Urban Alternative Certification Program at Georgia State University.
His achievements in the field have not gone unnoticed. In 2007, David was honored with one of the Outstanding Atlanta awards, reflecting his significant contributions to the community and commitment to service. He also received the Dr. Joseph Draper Service Award from the Atlanta Metro Chapter of the Morehouse College National Alumni Association in 2011. Notably, that same year, he was recognized as one of Atlanta’s rising community leaders through the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s “40 Under 40” awards.
In 2012, David earned recognition from the Georgia Charter Schools Association as the Georgia Charter Leader of the Year, solidifying his influence in the charter school movement and educational reform. Most recently, his contributions to the state of Georgia were acknowledged when he was named one of the 100 Most Influential Georgians by Georgia Trend Magazine, marking a significant milestone in his distinguished career.
Passion for Youth Development
David's unwavering passion for helping kids and teens reach their full potential motivates his work each day. As an advocate for youth education and empowerment, he continually seeks to create opportunities and remove barriers for children in his community. His vision aligns with the mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, which aims to provide young people with a safe and supportive environment to grow, learn, and thrive.
Through David's leadership, the Boys & Girls Clubs have become a pivotal resource, offering programs that not only assist with academic achievement but also foster emotional and social development for youth in metro Atlanta. His strategic direction emphasizes collaboration, community engagement, and innovative approaches to addressing the challenges that young people face today.
David utilized his position as a Fisher Fellow at the KIPP Foundation to further refine his leadership skills and deepen his understanding of effective educational practices. By staying connected with fellow educ
Highlights
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta is so excited to receive this generous gift from Chick-fil-A Restaurants in honor of their retiring President & COO (and BGCMA Trustee) Tim Tassopoulos! Read more about how this gift will transform our training and onboarding experience for BGCMA employees in my recent SaportaReport column.
Check out this article by #bgcma board member Brooks Robinson who shares a compelling invitation to the Atlanta Tech Community to partner with nonprofits to help us deliver on our mission.
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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
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- 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.