About
Julia Classen
Julia Classen is Principal Consultant, Partner and co-founder of Aurora Consulting. She has conducted workshops and trainings, and facilitated meetings at the state, local and national level. She has been a leader on non-profit boards of directors for more than 30 years, serving organizations that are national, regional and local in scope. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and of the board of the New World Foundation located in New York City. She also serves as a member on the board of directors of the Minnesota Children’s Alliance.
Julia has worked as a consultant in a variety of arenas, including board development, leadership development, research and assessment, facilitation, public policy formation, strategic management and planning, and performance management. Julia serves as the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center’s Hubert Fellow at the Humphrey School of Public Affair at the University of Minnesota.
Julia received her Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute, with a focus on Leadership and Nonprofit Management. In addition to her consulting, Julia is an adjunct faculty member at the University of MN, Humphrey Institute.
Allison Rojas
Allison Rojas is Principal Consultant and Partner with Aurora Consulting. Allison has more than 20 years of experience assessing performance, strategic planning, creating organizational systems, developing programs, communicating with external audiences, and increasing resources.
Allison has consulted in a variety of fields, including extensive work with county, state, and national agencies. She has led national teams of consultants conducting organization assessments for nonprofit agencies and health care facilities. She led the development of a statewide quality management program, and has worked with numerous social services agencies to help them identify existing and emerging client needs and develop new programs to address them. In 2012, Allison served as a lead Performance Management Trainer for the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits Performance Management Leadership Institute in Greater Minnesota. She currently serves on the board of directors at Cookie Cart and participates in the Programs Committee.
Allison received her Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota Humphrey School with a focus on Nonprofit Management and Finance. She is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota Humphrey School.
Julia Jackson
Julia Jackson is a Consultant and Managing Partner with Aurora Consulting. Julia has been working in the public sector since 2005 in the areas of program design and evaluation, strategic planning, research and analysis, curriculum assessment and design, organization assessment and board development. Julia currently serves as Board Chair of the Rainbow Rumpus board of directors, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit. She is also a member of the Twin Cities chapter of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network where she serves as a member of the Governance Committee and a blog editor. She recently wrote a three part series of blogs for YNPN on demystifying board service for young nonprofit professionals.
Julia currently serves as Board Chair of the Rainbow Rumpus board of directors, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit. She is also a member of the Twin Cities chapter of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network where she blogs from time to time about her experiences as a consultant and board chair. Julia wrote a chapter for a new book from CharityChannel Press on governance to be published in 2013.
Julia received her Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School, with a focus on Public and Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Her areas of focus include nonprofit governance, capacity building, grant writing, program evaluation, strategic planning, and financial management.
