Denise Marie Harris

A lifelong grassroots activist, Denise has a keen sense of the messaging that resonates with each client’s donor base. Operationally, she has mastered the skill of fine-tuned targeting and segmenting of lead files to ensure the best campaign results possible. Instead of treating files as one, big mass of records to be called broadly no matter what the result, she has developed file management techniques that allow us to profitably solicit more donors on a file than clients typically expect. Then, in consultation with the client, she determines how deeply to penetrate the remaining records, so that the client has shared control and never feels trapped.

Denise was first energized to activism as a child. Relatives would visit and regale her family with stories of their experiences as young Freedom Riders fighting to desegregate the South. As soon as she could, Denise joined the marches for human rights and social justice, to end unjust wars, and for women’s reproductive freedom.

After graduating from college, she worked at several nonprofits and was ultimately drawn to the telemarketing industry, where she could continue to advocate for a wide variety of social causes that make a positive impact on society. She began her telemarketing career at Factor, Fox, and Associates, where she met Jim Harris, and eventually the two of them branched out and formed their own company, Harris and Harris Marketing.

The daughter of renowned jazz dancer Al Minns, Denise began dancing as soon as she could walk, and she is still immersed in the international jazz dance community, traveling across the United States and Europe to give lectures on the history of Black dance in America. While working at Harris and Harris Marketing, Denise’s sons auditioned to train at the newly opened Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles. At Debbie’s invitation, Denise returned to her dance roots and went to work as one of the Directors of the Academy, where she was instrumental in raising it to a level of international prominence. When Debbie became executive producer of Grey’s Anatomy, Denise was also ready to move on. She returned to Harris Marketing for a brief stint, then joined the SD&A team in 2015.

Denise earned a Bachelor of Arts in dance and K-8 education from The State University of New York, College at Old Westbury.