Patrice Shumate

Patrice Shumate is a fellow human trying to do good in the world. She brings two decades of experience working in and around nonprofits, beginning her career as a social worker in 2005 before shifting into independent consulting in 2016. Along the way, she has worked across just about every corner of the sector – housing, youth programs, community development, health, recovery, education, reproductive health, aging, and even wildlife – which has given her a front-row seat to how the system truly works, and who gets left behind.

Most recently, Patrice founded A Village for Good, a social enterprise built to help small and mid-sized nonprofits navigate the funding landscape with more clarity, strategy, and humanity. Through that work, she developed a deep belief that the future of the social sector is human-centered, values-driven, and a lot braver than what most of us have been taught to expect.

She joins PhilMO as Learning and Network Manager because she believes that connecting, equipping, and energizing the people behind Missouri philanthropy is one of the most strategic levers available for real, lasting change. Patrice is about as Missouri as it gets. Raised in a small town in the southern part of the state, she has lived and worked in many corners of Missouri and has family scattered across most of the rest of it. She holds a Master of Social Work with a concentration in Advocacy and Administration and has worked with nonprofit organizations across the United States.

When she is not thinking about how to make the business of doing good more equitable and sustainable, she can usually be found freezing in an ice arena watching her two kids play hockey.