Foundations and Non-Profits

Executive Director
for Womens & Girls Foundation

Grant-making is both an art and a science. To make grant-making decisions that leverage benefits in an ever-changing world, foundation leaders must be thought-leaders with vision. The work of foundations are highly nuanced and strategic. Yet in today’s climate, it requires proactive leadership. The Boulware Group’s reputation in the foundation community rests on three qualities: our sensitivity to differences among foundations and their unique cultures, our grasp of current developments in grant-making, and our longstanding dedication to the nonprofit community.

The Boulware Group at Work

At Issue: A nationally known philanthropic organization dedicated to increasing opportunities for women and girls turned to The Boulware Group to find its next Executive Director. Under the leadership of the previous Executive Director (also recruited by The Boulware Group), the Foundation’s endowment had grown fourfold in four years. The challenge now was to find the right leader for the organization’s current (and dynamic) stage of growth, which called for the strengthening of its infrastructure, a deepening of its program impact, and continued enhancement of its national profile.

“Christine Boulware knows the world of not-for-profit agencies as well as anyone in Chicago and understands the organizational and financial challenges that high level managers must deal with in those agencies.” George Galland,
Chair, Board of Trustees,
Abraham Lincoln Center, Chicago

At Stake

The enhanced capacity of a national advocate for girls and women.

Our Response

We contributed our extensive knowledge of the nonprofit landscape based on scores of successful recruitments of senior nonprofit leaders.

We developed a search strategy to identify individuals with both rigorous corporate backgrounds and executive-level involvement in issues affecting the lives of women and girls.

We drew on our understanding of the knowledge of the life-cycle of organizations to find two superb leaders appropriate to two phases of organizational growth.

Ultimately, our mission is our client’s mission.

The Result

The successful candidate, a respected leader and veteran fundraiser, led a national organization for girls through a period of outstanding growth. The Boulware Group knew of her by reputation.  Upon hearing that she had just moved to a new city, we promptly arranged for a meeting with her. She was later to say for publication that this meeting was a turning point in her life.

Advocacy Clients

• • Business and Professional People for the Public Interest
  • California Tomorrow
  • Center for Creative Leadership
  • Center for Neighborhood Technology
  • Center for New Media
  • Chicago Lawyer’s Committee
  • Coalition for the Homeless
  • The Community Builders
  • District of Columbia Coalition for the Homeless
  • DevCorp North (formerly Howard/Paulina Development Corp.)
  • Environmental Defense Fund
  • Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT)
  • Food Research and Action Center
  • Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation
  • Inquilionos Borcusas En Accion (IBA)
  • Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
  • Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under Law
  • Michigan’s Children
  • MidAmerica Leadership Foundation
  • Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE)
  • National Black MBA Association
  • National Forum for Black Public Administrators
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • Prevention First
  • Society of Organizational Learning
  • Towards A More Perfect Union
  • United Food and Commercial Workers
  • Zero Population Growth