Lowell, MA – Community Teamwork is pleased to announce that Deniz (Denise) Ozturk has joined the organization as the incoming Director of Development (DoD). In this role, Denise will manage the Community Investment Tax Credit (CITC) charitable-giving and State tax reimbursement incentive program unique to Community Development Corporations. She will also oversee strategic fundraising efforts from annual fund and corporate giving to major gifts and planned giving. She is skilled in donor relations, stewardship and prospect research for which she is a member of the fundraising and donor relations professional associations.

Denise has studied the Causes of Regional Variations in the U.S Poverty Rate and, after starting her professional career in the Asset Management and Financial Services industry, she worked in international development managing private sector partnerships and corporate citizenship initiatives for the United Nations, including the UN Global Compact. For over 7 years, she educated and advised companies, investors, stock exchanges and regulators on sustainability reporting and also raised funds from high-net-worth-individuals such as business and investor executives and entrepreneurs for the UN’s main Private Sector initiative. After returning to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which she considers home, Denise began raising private funding from individual and institutional donors for human and social services agencies and commissions. Denise has a life-long commitment to sustainable development, including poverty eradication.

Denise enthusiastically expressed that, “Philanthropic benevolence has increased in recent years. I am excited to work with donors and their financial advisers to meet charitable giving wishes, objectives and issue-area interests. Thanks to the generous support of Community Teamwork’s donors, we are able to meet the growing needs of marginalized communities who have been adversely affected by the most recent health and humanitarian crisis. Together, as architects of a more inclusive and ultimately better world, I genuinely believe that we can eradicate poverty in the Commonwealth by reducing regional inequities.”

Community Teamwork is a catalyst for social change. Our driving mission is to help people help themselves with childcare, family supports, nutrition, fuel assistance, housing, skills training, employment, financial education, and individual asset and small business development. As a Community Action Agency, a Regional Housing Agency, and a Community Development Corporation, Community Teamwork helps nearly 54,000 individuals from 71 cities and towns in northeastern Massachusetts gain greater economic independence. For more information, please visit www.commteam.org.

kplath@commteam.org