 Lisa Richardson Jackson, Ph.D., currently Vice
President for Performance and Outcomes at The Home for Little Wanderers,
has been named an associate director at CEP. Jackson, who will assume
her position at CEP on July 5, will lead research initiatives, deliver
assessment tools to foundations, and be a key part of CEP's leadership
team.
"Lisa Jackson is a crucial addition to CEP," said
Phil Buchanan, Executive Director. "She has a great combination
of strong research and evaluation credentials and significant experience
putting practical data to use to inform decision-making within organizations
focused on making a positive social impact. She will bring new vision
and energy to CEP's work."
Jackson will lead CEP's ongoing research in the
area of foundation governance and will manage CEP's board self-assessment
tool, the Comparative Board Report (CBR). Jackson will also work
on other CEP research projects and will be involved in delivering
all of CEP's assessment tools.
At The Home for Little Wanderers, Jackson created
and led the Department for Performance and Outcomes, recruiting
and managing a staff of seven and serving as a member of the Executive
Management Team at the 700-employee child welfare organization.
Jackson's experience also includes positions as Project Director
of Boston After-School Enterprise, Project Director at Gear Up,
and Assistant Professor at the Boston College School of Education.
She has served as an evaluation consultant to a range of youth-focused
organizations including Citizen Schools, Zero-to-Three, and the
National Association for the Education of Young Children. She has
published articles on race, education, and evaluation in a variety
of academic journals and given presentations on these topics at
various conferences. She has served as a member of several nonprofit
boards.
Jackson holds a Ph.D. in Psychological Studies
in Education from Stanford University and a B.S. in Psychology from
Howard University.
Other Staff Changes
 Jackson
joins CEP’s Associate Directors Kevin Bolduc, who was the
second CEP employee hired in 2001, and Judy Huang, who has served
in a variety of positions since she joined CEP in 2002 and was named
an associate director in February.
Bolduc is leading CEP's Foundation Strategy
Study and is also responsible for the Staff Perception Report (SPR)
and Operational Benchmarking Report (OBR). Huang leads CEP's
grantee survey work, manages the delivery of Grantee Perception
Reports® (GPR) to foundations, and manages CEP's
study on the impact of different types of support on nonprofits.
Ellie Buteau, Ph.D., joined CEP's staff as senior
research officer in February. Buteau, an expert in quantitative
and qualitative research methodology and statistical analyses, had
been working with CEP on a half-time basis since 2004. "Ellie Buteau
has contributed enormously to CEP's recent research initiatives,
particularly our work on governance and strategy," said Buchanan.
Other recent staff additions include Latia King,
who is Executive Assistant to the Executive Director, and Amber
Sprague, who is Executive Assistant providing support to the associate
directors.
CEP's staff will number 15 by midsummer and has
expanded from a half dozen in early 2004.
In an article in an edition of Alliance
magazine devoted to donors as learning organizations, Phil Buchanan
argues that "foundation staff and board members have a responsibility
to use their learning to inform improvement in performance."
"It is easy to see how the pursuit of learning
can become an exercise in self-indulgence," writes Buchanan. "With
few external forces influencing them, foundations must exercise
considerable discipline to commit to learning about their own performance
by asking the simple question, how are we doing?" The article describes
how foundation leaders increasingly are embracing indicators of
effectiveness to assess and improve their performance. To read the
article, click here.
CEP is making progress on its three major 2006
research initiatives: a study on foundation strategy, Phase III
of the Foundation Governance Project, and a study on the effect
of type of support on nonprofit organizations.
The first two studies involve qualitative research
based on in-depth interviews. "CEP is best-known for survey research
and assessment tools," said Executive Director Phil Buchanan. "But
qualitative approaches and case examples are also an important part
of our research agenda — because not everything that's important
can be quantified and because people learn from powerful examples."
The strategy study, funded by the Surdna Foundation,
is in its first phase, which involves interviews with CEOs and program
officers at 20 randomly selected private foundations. The interviews,
conducted by Associate Director Kevin Bolduc and Senior Research
Officer Ellie Buteau, Ph.D., are now complete. "We have terrific
data from the interviews," said Bolduc. "Now we're working
hard to analyze the interview transcripts and begin to draft our
report."
Phase III of the Governance Study is based on 45
interviews with foundation CEOs and trustees conducted in 2005.
Analysis of those results is also well underway.
The study on type of support, funded by the Aspen
Institute, includes an analysis of survey responses from 20,000
grantees of more than 150 foundations and a survey of the CEOs of
those foundations, which was conducted earlier this spring. CEP
will round out its data collection efforts by interviewing grantees
this summer. Associate Director Judy Huang and Buteau presented
preliminary findings to CEP's Advisory Board in May. A report is
due out in the early fall.
 Michael
Bailin, former president of The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
(EMCF) and Pat Kozu, Vice President, Finance & Administration
at The F.B. Heron Foundation, were recently elected to three-year
terms to CEP's Board of Directors.
Bailin's Experience Strengthens CEP
"Michael Bailin's significant experience
as a foundation leader and his demonstrated commitment to improving
foundation effectiveness will strengthen CEP," said Phil Giudice,
Chair of CEP's Board of Directors.
Bailin served as president of EMCF from 1996 to
2005 and guided the foundation through a significant shift in its
focus and approach to grantmaking. As a February 2006 Chronicle
of Philanthropy article noted, "The New York foundation wound
down its…programs that had focused on solving broad, entrenched
problems…and instead placed all of its chips on a new effort
to improve youth groups."
"Michael Bailin's leadership of EMCF transformed
the Foundation and launched one of the most important and innovative
strategies ever undertaken by a U.S. foundation," said Phil Buchanan,
Executive Director. "He has offered important counsel to CEP as
a member of our Advisory Board, and we look forward to his continued
engagement in his new role."
For the 17 years prior to his work at EMCF, Bailin
was a founder, former president, and chief executive officer of
Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), a nationally recognized nonprofit
organization dedicated to improving opportunities for young people
in poor communities. Over the years he has helped to build, has
managed, or has served as a board member or advisor to numerous
nonprofit organizations, and currently serves on a number of boards,
including Civic Ventures and the William Penn Foundation.
Kozu Brings Important Skills
 Pat
Kozu, Vice President, Finance & Administration at The F.B. Heron
Foundation, joined CEP's board in January 2006. At the F.B. Heron
Foundation, she is responsible for finance, administration, human
resources, customer service, compliance, program infrastructure,
communications, operations, technology, and facilities management.
"Pat has been particularly thoughtful about
the challenge of assessing foundation performance," said Giudice.
"She brings an important perspective to our work, and we are
pleased that she has agreed to serve as chair of CEP's Finance
Committee."
Prior to joining the F.B. Heron Foundation, Kozu
served in executive roles in operations, finance, and marketing
at Citibank and American Express as well as at several entrepreneurial
ventures. She is a member of the Financial Women's Association and
Foundation Financial Officers Group and is chair of the New York
Foundation Financial Managers Group. Kozu also serves on the Committee
for Members and Directors for the New York Regional Association
of Grantmakers.
An increasing number of foundations are using CEP's
Comparative Board Report (CBR) process as a springboard for improvement
in board functioning. The CBR is the only board self-assessment
tool that is based on large-scale research on foundation boards
and that includes foundation-specific comparative data.
The CBR allows a foundation to understand the candid
perspectives of its trustees on a range of questions related to
board effectiveness, including where the board wants to be more
and less involved, how well utilized board members perceive themselves
to be, and how board dynamics affect board functioning. A key part
of the CBR process is a facilitated discussion with a foundation
board on the implications of the data collected – and what
steps the board will take to improve its functioning. Among the
foundation boards that have participated in the CBR process this
year are one of the 10 largest private foundations in the United
States, a $500 million family foundation, and a $200 million health-focused
foundation.
For more information, contact Phil
Buchanan at (617) 492-0800 ext. 203.
 Leadership
expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter will be among the speakers at CEP's
March 8—9 2007 conference Assessment to Action: Creating
Change, at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel. Kanter, who holds
the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School,
specializes in strategy, innovation, and leadership for change.
She will discuss the challenges foundation leaders face in executing
their strategies as well as methods to align human and financial
resources to achieve higher performance.
Professor Kanter has provided strategic and practical
insights to leaders of large and small organizations worldwide for
more than 25 years, through teaching, writing, and direct consultation
to major corporations and governments. The former Editor of Harvard
Business Review (1989-1992), Kanter has been named to lists
of the "50 most powerful women in the world" (Times of London),
and the "50 most influential business thinkers in the world" (Accenture
and Thinkers 50 research). In 2001, she received the Academy of
Management's Distinguished Career Award for her scholarly contributions
to management knowledge, and in 2002 was named "Intelligent Community
Visionary of the Year" by the World Teleport Association. Professor
Kanter is the author or coauthor of 16 books, which have been translated
into 17 languages.
Her latest initiative involves the development
and creation of an innovative institute for advanced leadership,
to ensure that successful leaders at the top of their professions
can apply their skills not only to managing their own enterprises
but also to helping solve the most challenging national and global
problems.
Registration for the conference will open in late
summer. If you would like to receive updates on the conference and
its agenda, please contact Alyse
d'Amico at (617) 492-0800 ext. 206.
Effective Matters
is a quarterly newsletter published by the Center
for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a nonprofit organization focused
on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing
foundations. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, CEP's mission is
to provide management and governance tools to define, assess, and
improve overall foundation performance.
If you have questions about this newsletter or
would like general information about CEP and its activities, please
contact Alyse
d'Amico at 617-492-0800 ext. 206.
Permission to use, copy, and/or distribute this
document in whole or in part for noncommercial purposes without
fee is hereby granted provided that this notice and appropriate
credit to the Center for Effective Philanthropy is included in all
copies. |
