PAUL GROGAN - PRESIDENT & CEO, THE BOSTON FOUNDATION

Since joining The Boston Foundation as President and CEO in July 2001, Paul Grogan has boosted fundraising, streamlined operations and launched high-impact initiatives in several areas, including civic engagement. Paul came to the Foundation after serving as Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs at Harvard University, where he oversaw all government relations for Harvard, relations with Harvard’s host communities of Cambridge and Boston, and the Harvard news office. He was also a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Business School. Previously, Paul served Mayors Kevin H. White and Raymond L. Flynn in a variety of staff and line positions. He also headed Boston’s neighborhood revitalization efforts in the early 80s, where he pioneered a series of public/private ventures that have been widely emulated by other cities.

From 1986 through 1998, Paul was President and CEO of the nonprofit Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation’s largest community development intermediary. During his term as president, LISC raised and invested more than $3 billion of private capital in inner-city revitalization efforts across America, all channeled through local nonprofit community development corporations. In 1997, Williams College awarded Paul a Bicentennial Medal for his leadership in inner-city revitalization efforts.

Paul graduated with honors from Williams College in 1972 and earned a Masters degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1979. While at Harvard, Paul created a new national organization, CEOs for Cities, whose members are big city mayors, business leaders, university presidents and foundation executives. Paul is also a Zuckerman Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government; director of the for-profit company, the Community Development Trust, which he helped found; a director of New Profit, Inc.; a trustee of the Knight Foundation; and a former trustee of Williams College. He co-authored with Tony Proscio the book Comeback Cities, published in 2000.

In his Mission Recognition interview, Paul discuss how the disciplines and mechanisms of the private market can and should influence how funders and nonprofits address social and economic issues.


Click here to hear Paul's interivew (22 min. 43 sec.)
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