With 20 years’ proven history leading community impact organizations, Charles “Charlie” Iacono is a seasoned, passionate philanthropy and organizational leadership executive with a demonstrated track record in developing and implementing a broad base of fundraising and community engagement strategies for mission-based organizations. His expertise in building strong networks–focused on cultivating awareness, creating long-term relationships, and creating sustainable cultures of philanthropy and corporate support–has resulted in numerous organizations realizing their mission and vision statements.
Charlie’s professional career includes extensive experience in organizational leadership, commercial partnerships, and traditional fundraising, as well as marketing, community, and government relations. He has served in leadership and executive positions in a variety of healthcare, community, and faith-based organizations throughout the East Coast, including CCS Fundraising, Hope Health, JDRF International, and T1D Exchange.
Charlie joins the Green Beret Foundation as President and CEO, having most recently served as the Senior Development and Board Relations Officer for the USO for the Northeast Region (spanning Maine to Delaware), where his accomplishments included the building of a Northeast Regional Board of Advisors and four Local Advisory Boards, while also providing insight, strategy, and collaborative action plans to raise funds for the organization. During his tenure, he coordinated and executed in conjunction with his USO team to create sound development/fundraising tactics and board relations plans, ultimately leading to a sustainable culture of philanthropy for the global enterprise.
Prior to joining the USO, Charlie served as the Vice President of Industry Relations and Commercial Partnerships at T1D Exchange–a passion project of advocacy for others who, like himself, seek to enjoy healthy and full lives despite a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis. His responsibilities at T1D Exchange included facilitating and coordinating industry and commercial investments that yielded in the organization’s diversification of its revenue streams, amplifying their ability to meet the growing needs of industry partners and the T1D community by partnering with philanthropists, family offices, industry leaders, companies, academic-medical research centers, and non-profit organizations. Charlie is credited with transforming industry relations, increasing commercial revenue, and improving upon traditional philanthropy at T1D Exchange by creating new donor- and partner-centric engagements, diversifying funding, and measurably elevating programmatic outcomes. Additionally, in partnership with the team at T1D Exchange, Charlie worked with early-stage start-ups in the diabetes realm that eventually transformed the landscape of T1D management and care.
Over the course of his career, spent interfacing with various layers of industry and the not-for-profit sector, Charlie has customarily achieved organizational leadership and business objectives by creating meaningful and forward-facing interactions through servant leadership. Having advised a variety of for-profit and not-for-profit institutions to improve all aspects of local and global communities, he is accustomed to utilizing real-word data to drive change, and constantly welcomes the opportunity to bring about impact through partnerships and innovation. Charlie is a sought-after presenter at regional, national, and international conferences on the topics of creating sustainable cultures of philanthropy, diabetes management and innovation, faith-based fundraising, and organizational leadership.
Charlie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business/Communications from Assumption University and a Master of Business Administration in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from JWU, as well as an Executive Leadership Certificate from Harvard Business School. He resides in Norfolk, Massachusetts with his beautiful wife, Katie, with whom he strives diligently to raise their sons, Peter and Thomas, to uphold their strongly held values of faith, family, and country.
