Chris Strom
With more than two decades of marketing leadership experience across nonprofit, higher education, and consulting, Chris Strom is a builder of brands, teams, and audiences who is equally at home developing strategy and rolling up his sleeves to execute. He is known for translating complicated ideas into practical action through analogy, story, and example, and for helping mission-driven organizations strengthen their identities, deepen donor and member engagement, and connect more meaningfully with the communities they serve.
Chris serves as Chief Marketing Officer of Sunrise Association, a global nonprofit that brings the joy of childhood to children with cancer and their siblings through free summer day camps, in-hospital programs, and year-round activities reaching tens of thousands of children across hundreds of hospitals in seven countries. He leads brand strategy, donor communications, integrated campaigns, peer-to-peer and event marketing, and content production for an organization on a steep growth trajectory. His earlier nonprofit leadership work includes Chief Experience Officer at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades and Director of New Media for JCCs of North America, where he led membership growth, digital transformation, and a national peer-to-peer crowdfunding initiative that raised more than $100,000.
Chris is also an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University’s Stillman School of Business, where he teaches Digital Marketing & AI. He is a frequent workshop facilitator and keynote presenter on responsible AI adoption, donor engagement, and brand storytelling, and has developed proprietary frameworks including CRAFT and BRIGHT that help organizations move from AI curiosity to AI capability.
A self-described top one percent AI tool user, Chris designs custom GPTs, Claude skills, and content systems that allow small teams to perform like teams several times their size. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Suffolk University and brings to his teaching and consulting a practitioner’s perspective, an educator’s patience, and an unshakable belief that fundraising and marketing, done well, are some of the most important work in the world.