Advisory Board

Timothy Freundlich, Financial Advisor

Tim is the Director of Strategic Development for the Calvert Social Investment Foundation, a community development financial intermediary managing a range of investment, consulting, and asset administration products that bring together the philanthropic and socially responsible investment spaces. Tim has been with Calvert since June of 1997. Previously, Tim was a documentary video editor, a wine buyer, and a manager/partner of three restaurants. He received a B.A. in Film from Wesleyan University, and is currently enrolled in the Executive MBA program at the University of San Francisco. Tim spends much of his free time as an advisor to social enterprises, and as an active Founding Partner of Social Venture Partners Bay Area.

Dr. Edward Machtinger, MD, Health-Related Project Advisor

Edward is Channel G’s primary advisor on health-related projects. Edward is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and currently an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is an HIV specialist with a clinical and research focus on minorities and women with HIV. He also works and performs research in East Africa and lectures widely on the international HIV epidemic. He is the Co-Director of the UCSF Fellowship Program in AIDS Care, Assistant Director of USCF Acute Care Services, and an Attending Physician on the medical service and ICU at UCSF Moffitt-Long Hospital.

Dan Merkle, Legal and Project Advisor

Dan is a co-founder of the Independent Media Center and has worked for several years with progressive organizations using television and the Internet to broaden their impact. Dan uses his extensive knowledge and contacts to increase Channel G’s ability to locate and present highly effective non-profit projects.

Evelyn Messinger, Media Advisor

Ms. Messinger, President and Director of InterAct, is a co-founder of Internews InterActive, and is a major content provider to WorldLink TV. Ms. Messinger has worked as a news and documentary producer/editor for PBS and CBS News, and has produced or developed programming for the BBC, French television, and others. She worked in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe as the first Electronic Media Director for the Soros Foundation, and with Internews, designed and carried out projects in support of independent media in Bosnia, Palestine, Israel, Russia, and the former Soviet Union.

Dr. Jay Pensler, M.D, Health-Related Project Advisor

Jay Pensler is an internationally acclaimed surgeon. After attending medical school at the University of Chicago, Dr. Pensler went on to study craniofacial surgery at Harvard University and general surgery at NYU. Dr. Pensler has donated his surgical services domestically and abroad in order to provide health care and surgical services in underprivileged communities. An Associate Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School and Fellow of the International College of Surgeons, Dr. Pensler is often consulted by the medical community and the press as an expert in the field. Having appeared as a medical expert on television on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and having been quoted in local and national media (Time, Crains, Chicago), Dr. Pensler continues to expand his involvement in educating the public on medical topics as well as expanding his practice. Dr. Pensler has received numerous awards and is included on multiple lists of "top" doctors and surgeons (Castle Connolly, Consumers Research Council of America).

John Steiner, Nonprofit Advisor

Networker, catalyst, and philanthropist, John brings together people, ideas, projects, and money around a common cause. He is a founding member and leader of the Threshold Foundation, a national association of people with earned and inherited wealth who have come together to pool their money to support social and transformational change activities. He is a founding member of the Social Venture Network, a national affiliation of socially responsible entrepreneurs, investors, and social entrepreneurs whose mission is to develop a triple bottom line that recognizes the importance of healthy profits, healthy people, and a healthy planet. He is a co-founder and convener of GEMS, Green Economic Movement Strategies, which employs entrepreneurial skills to intervene in the market place on behalf of a more ecologically sustainable economy. He is the founder and director of Creative Philanthropy Associates.