Our Mission
To challenge the thinking and practice of aspiring nonprofit organizations and their leaders as they seek to build a more just and decent world for us all.
Our Vision
A just, decent and humane society served by well-resourced nonprofit organizations whose leaders are rested, resourceful, courageous, effective and powerful.
About Peggy Morrison Outon, Principal
Peggy Morrison Outon founded Excelsior Consulting after a long and distinguished career in the nonprofit capacity building realm.
Until June 2023, Peggy served as the Assistant Vice President for Engagement & Leadership Development at Robert Morris University. She was the founding Executive Director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was also Director of the Covestro Center for Community Engagement. Prior to establishing the Bayer Center, Peggy founded similar institutions in Austin, Texas and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Peggy has three decades’ experience in the nonprofit sector as development officer, management support professional, board member and volunteer. As a consultant, she has served more than 1,200 clients as they improved their strategy, governance, fundraising and executive transitions. She worked as an arts development officer in Austin, TX and in New Orleans, LA. With the help of many volunteer leaders, she has led successful fundraising campaigns that have resulted in $45 million new dollars for arts, management support and other nonprofit organizations.
As a volunteer, she has served on 34 boards—8 as president, including chairing the founding national board of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. She also served as a founding member of the Drucker Foundation’s international training team. Her pay equity research, 74%: Exploring the Lives of Women in Nonprofits, has attracted national attention, resulting in more than seven million media impressions on the project, including an Op-Ed on April 2015 issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Her most recent research, WhatNow?: How will the retirement of nonprofit leaders change the sector? Has attracted national attention with stories in the Nonprofit Quarterly, the Nonprofit Times (print and podcast), the Chronicle of Philanthropy and was named by Independent Sector as one of the four most important pieces of research released in February 2018.
Post Katrina, Peggy was asked by the Ford Foundation to help establish the Disaster Recovery Foundation for the Louisiana Governor. She has been named by a leading national publication for nonprofit management to The Nonprofit Times Top 50 for Power and Influence. She has also been named the Pearl of Excellence by the Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania, honored as a Woman of Achievement by the Cribs for Kids/SIDS International annual dinner, and honored as a Woman of Influence by the Pittsburgh Business Times in 2020. March 22, 2011 was designated by the Pittsburgh City Council as Peggy Morrison Outon Day in Pittsburgh, in recognition of her commitment to the nonprofit sector.
She has served as a management consultant to more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations in fund development, board development, strategic & operational planning and volunteer management. As a volunteer, she has served on 34 boards—8 as president, including chairing the founding board for five years of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, a national network of nonprofit capacity builders. Locally, she has served the boards of Global Pittsburgh, the Albert Schweitzer Fellows and the August Wilson Center.
She has taught graduate students at both the University of New Orleans and Robert Morris University. At the University of New Orleans, she was a master professor in the Arts Administration Masters’ degree program. Her research on the 74%: Exploring the Lives of Women in Nonprofits is attracting national attention to the work of the Pittsburgh nonprofit sector. The 74% project has attracted more than seven million media impressions, including op-eds in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and the Heinz Endowments quarterly magazine. The research has been featured on national podcasts and extensively on local NPR as well as national and regional conferences. She has taught countless classes, moderated numerous panels and served a keynote speaker on nonprofit management in the US and abroad.
She has spoken to more than 20,000 people locally, nationally and internationally on many topics of nonprofit management and governance. She has been an active volunteer with the Independent Sector, a DC based nonprofit advocacy organization. She is frequently quoted on nonprofit issues in local and national publications, most recently twice in The American Lawyer.
An alumna of Sweet Briar College and a proud graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she is long-married to Paul Outon, a contractor and residential property developer on the Northside of Pittsburgh. She and Paul are active volunteers with Community House Presbyterian Church as well as her previous congregation, East Liberty Presbyterian. They also volunteer regularly for Global Pittsburgh, Bricolage and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Her son, Ross, lives and works in the wine industry in Sonoma, CA. Her daughter, Katie, is a practicing attorney and has recently joined the staff of the Mansmann Foundation which provides entrepreneurial support to under-resourced communities.