Day 7: Alumni Doing Good
December 7, 2025
December 7, 2025
Our alumni are doing incredible work across the country and around the world. If you know a fellow alum whose impact stands out, through their career, leadership, or service, we want to hear about them. Explore the alumni stories below for inspiration and then use the form to nominate an outstanding alumnus for one of our three awards!
Jesse Schaefer ’12
Early on in her college career, Jesse Schaefer ’12 realized that she wanted to work in the non-profit space. She first discovered this passion during her time in the Washington College Service Council, an organization that she would go on to lead and was the home of some of her fondest college memories. “The campus was our playground; we got to explore all sorts of fundraising opportunities. It felt good to feel like I was giving back and contributing to something beyond myself.”
Schaefer didn’t have to go far out of college to find her first non-profit job, landing a position in the Development Office at Washington College. During her time as a student, she wrote a thank you note to the donor who made a scholarship she had received possible. The Development Team was impressed by her note and invited her to speak at an alumni event. In her senior year, she was approached by the VP of Development who had a new position in mind for her: the team was looking for a young alum to build out something called the Voyagers Program, serving as a young alum on staff who was the first point of contact for graduates.
She worked in this role at Washington College for a year and a half before moving to Baltimore and taking a job in DC. While working for nonprofits was the through-line of her career, she found herself specifically drawn to work in fundraising. “The more I learned about the nonprofit world, the more I started to see myself in fundraising or the back-end functions. As much as I enjoyed direct service, I felt I could move the needle even more by supporting behind the scenes.” As her career advanced, she began working at the Boys Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore. During her time there, she started as Director of Development and Communications. Over the years, she became a Senior Director, then a VP, and is now the COO. She attributes her success there to being a versatile employee. She’s found herself able to help with everything from human resources work to assisting in financial projects. “Outside of any specific skillset, Washington College teaches you transferable skills, the kind of things that will take you far no matter what you end up doing.”
Jesse Schaefer ’12
Early on in her college career, Jesse Schaefer ’12 realized that she wanted to work in the non-profit space. She first discovered this passion during her time in the Washington College Service Council, an organization that she would go on to lead and was the home of some of her fondest college memories. “The campus was our playground; we got to explore all sorts of fundraising opportunities. It felt good to feel like I was giving back and contributing to something beyond myself.”
Schaefer didn’t have to go far out of college to find her first non-profit job, landing a position in the Development Office at Washington College. During her time as a student, she wrote a thank you note to the donor who made a scholarship she had received possible. The Development Team was impressed by her note and invited her to speak at an alumni event. In her senior year, she was approached by the VP of Development who had a new position in mind for her: the team was looking for a young alum to build out something called the Voyagers Program, serving as a young alum on staff who was the first point of contact for graduates.
She worked in this role at Washington College for a year and a half before moving to Baltimore and taking a job in DC. While working for nonprofits was the through-line of her career, she found herself specifically drawn to work in fundraising. “The more I learned about the nonprofit world, the more I started to see myself in fundraising or the back-end functions. As much as I enjoyed direct service, I felt I could move the needle even more by supporting behind the scenes.” As her career advanced, she began working at the Boys Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Baltimore. During her time there, she started as Director of Development and Communications. Over the years, she became a Senior Director, then a VP, and is now the COO. She attributes her success there to being a versatile employee. She’s found herself able to help with everything from human resources work to assisting in financial projects. “Outside of any specific skillset, Washington College teaches you transferable skills, the kind of things that will take you far no matter what you end up doing.”
Karen DiLossi ’98
Karen DiLossi ’98 began her professional career freelancing and gigging in the Philly theatre scene. After gaining her footing in the theatre world, she moved into arts administration for about 8 years, helping to elevate the theatre scene in Philly to make it more of a destination for arts and culture. She assisted in marketing and development for theatre companies, ran local auditions, and ran the Barrymore Awards, the Philadelphian equivalent of the Tony Awards.
“The one thing people always came to my previous job looking for was space. They needed rehearsal space, they needed performance space, they needed space to build costumes, they needed space for all kinds of reasons,” DiLossi said. Because of this, she explored every venue option that came across her desk: everything from people who wanted to show off buildings, to people who wanted to open their spaces to the arts community. She would host parties, open houses, anything to get people there.
Around this same time, a non-profit called Partners for Sacred Places approached DiLossi. They were working on a study in the area of different congregational spaces that were willing to share their facilities with local artists. They came to her hoping she could help wrangle the arts community in Philly, given her expertise and knowledge of the local arts scene. After this project wrapped up, she wrote the president of Partners and expressed an interest in helping them develop this project further and the next thing she knew, she had a job. “I’ve shaped my job a little bit, Partners allowed me a lot of freedom to do what I needed to do.” In her new role, she worked with artists in NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, and Austin, to expand homes for the arts in local places of worship.
“You could either say I’ve answered the door when opportunity knocks, or I’ve gone where the wind has blown me. Maybe it’s a combination of the two.” For the next decade, she worked solely with artists. However, during the pandemic, she was approached by someone in Philly with a problem: due to schools going remote, they needed to find a way for kids to do their online schooling who didn’t have a computer, internet, or adult supervision.
DiLossi went on to help this individual and others open three community learning hubs in the Philly area, providing a safe place for kids to learn during the pandemic. This experience showed her that the work she did to bring artists into spaces could apply to anyone looking to share space with a congregation. She worked with places to help them rethink how they live in their spaces.
Today, DiLossi is the Senior Director of Programs at Partners for Sacred Places. She views this role as the perfect marriage of her two areas of study: history and drama. Having a deeper understanding of what these spaces provide to their communities is very important. Everything from food pantries to coat drives, spaces like these all around the country are filling in these gaps for communities. “The way I see it, I’m using my talents and the things I was trained to do at Washington College and beyond to make this world a little better than how I found it.”
Karen DiLossi ’98 began her professional career freelancing and gigging in the Philly theatre scene. After gaining her footing in the theatre world, she moved into arts administration for about 8 years, helping to elevate the theatre scene in Philly to make it more of a destination for arts and culture. She assisted in marketing and development for theatre companies, ran local auditions, and ran the Barrymore Awards, the Philadelphian equivalent of the Tony Awards.
“The one thing people always came to my previous job looking for was space. They needed rehearsal space, they needed performance space, they needed space to build costumes, they needed space for all kinds of reasons,” DiLossi said. Because of this, she explored every venue option that came across her desk: everything from people who wanted to show off buildings, to people who wanted to open their spaces to the arts community. She would host parties, open houses, anything to get people there.
Around this same time, a non-profit called Partners for Sacred Places approached DiLossi. They were working on a study in the area of different congregational spaces that were willing to share their facilities with local artists. They came to her hoping she could help wrangle the arts community in Philly, given her expertise and knowledge of the local arts scene. After this project wrapped up, she wrote the president of Partners and expressed an interest in helping them develop this project further and the next thing she knew, she had a job. “I’ve shaped my job a little bit, Partners allowed me a lot of freedom to do what I needed to do.” In her new role, she worked with artists in NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, and Austin, to expand homes for the arts in local places of worship.
“You could either say I’ve answered the door when opportunity knocks, or I’ve gone where the wind has blown me. Maybe it’s a combination of the two.” For the next decade, she worked solely with artists. However, during the pandemic, she was approached by someone in Philly with a problem: due to schools going remote, they needed to find a way for kids to do their online schooling who didn’t have a computer, internet, or adult supervision.
DiLossi went on to help this individual and others open three community learning hubs in the Philly area, providing a safe place for kids to learn during the pandemic. This experience showed her that the work she did to bring artists into spaces could apply to anyone looking to share space with a congregation. She worked with places to help them rethink how they live in their spaces.
Today, DiLossi is the Senior Director of Programs at Partners for Sacred Places. She views this role as the perfect marriage of her two areas of study: history and drama. Having a deeper understanding of what these spaces provide to their communities is very important. Everything from food pantries to coat drives, spaces like these all around the country are filling in these gaps for communities. “The way I see it, I’m using my talents and the things I was trained to do at Washington College and beyond to make this world a little better than how I found it.”
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