Christina Sutherland brings more than two decades of foundation and nonprofit leadership and experience to her consulting practice. She has deep expertise in foundation management, grantmaking and organizational development.
Before founding a successful consulting practice in 2002 to serve private and community foundations, Chris served as Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Programs for the East Bay Community Foundation, and Director of Programs for the Peninsula Community Foundation (now part of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation).
Before entering the foundation sector, Chris served as Executive Director of three nonprofit human services agencies.
CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS/HIGHLIGHTS
- Served as first Chief Operating Officer of a rapidly growing mid-sized foundation ($130 million in assets).
- Designed and managed a complex $5 million annual grantmaking program for a $400 million community foundation.
- Designed and managed a five-year $10 million initiative building the community leadership, internal operations, governance and grantmaking capacities of small, rural community foundations throughout California.
- Created a ground-breaking approach, later adopted by community foundations nationwide, that integrated grantmaking and development/donor services functions to better serve grantees and donors and significantly increase charitable giving.
- Developed a program for successfully incubating small regional community affiliate funds in the context of a larger community foundation.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- Education Committee, Northern California Grantmakers
- Invited participant, Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth (CCFY) Executive Seminars
- Guest lecturer, League of California Community Foundations Growing Community Foundations Program
- Co-author, “The ‘Five-Year Time Bomb’: An Analysis of the Stewart B. McKinney Act Housing Programs in California” Which resulted in major changes in federal housing programs under the National Affordable Housing Act of 1990
EDUCATION
- University of California, Los Angeles, B.A. in Social History of Poverty