THE SEARCH

The Prince Charitable Trusts, a $150 million family philanthropy comprised of three Trusts, seeks its next Managing Director of its Washington D.C. office and Co-Director of its Rhode Island program. This leader has an opportunity to advance the programmatic mission of the Washington D.C. and Rhode Island programs while leading the day-to-day operations of the Washington D.C. office. Today, the Trusts operate with giving programs in the city of Chicago, the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, and the state of Rhode Island. In the past 15 years, the Trusts have made grants totaling just over $100 million. In 2015, the Foundation’s annual grantmaking budget was approximately $6 million, with the Washington D.C. program’s annual grantmaking at $2.5 million, and $1.3 million allocated to Rhode Island. Programming across the three geographies includes environment and community, arts and culture, youth, health and hospital morale.

This is an exciting opportunity to continue the impactful philanthropic work already underway at the Prince Charitable Trusts. This position calls for a leader with outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, a track record of stewarding and building strong relationships and partnerships, and a history of innovating new programming ideas. Management experience and successful team building skills are also necessary. S/he will bring an egoless approach to leadership while prioritizing the family’s programmatic interests. Knowledge of family philanthropy would be desirable, and particular experience and/or interest in one or more of the Foundation’s program areas, especially in the environment, would be appealing. This new leader should also foster and inspire an atmosphere of confidence, trust, and enjoyment.

The Managing Director will report to two Trustees on programmatic issues and the Executive Director/Managing Director of the Chicago office on overarching administrative and operational issues at the Trusts. With the Chicago Managing Director as a counterpart, this Managing Director will also co-direct the Rhode Island program. S/he will also lead a small team of staff and consultants in the Washington D.C. office.

Isaacson, Miller, a national retained executive search firm, is assisting the Prince Charitable Trusts in this recruitment. Please direct nominations, inquiries, and application materials in confidence to the search firm as indicated at the end of this document.

BACKGROUND

The Prince Charitable Trusts were established in the 1940s from the bequests of Frederick Henry Prince (1859 - 1953) and his wife, Abbie Norman Prince (1860 - 1949). Today, the three Trusts operate as one family foundation with giving programs in the city of Chicago, the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, and the state of Rhode Island. Frederick Henry Prince began his career as a Bostonian entrepreneur and he owned a brokerage and investment banking firm. As a financier and an early investor in railroads, he owned the legendary Union Stockyards in Chicago. Union Stockyards and the Central Manufacturing District that encompassed them are not only credited with being the first planned urban industrial real estate park in the city but also in the world. Frederick Henry Prince and his wife also were residents of Newport, Rhode Island.

Currently, the Prince Charitable Trusts are governed by two Trustees: Frederick Prince who resides in Washington D.C. and is second generation of the Trusts, and Patrick Wood-Prince who resides in Chicago and is third generation to the Foundation. Frederick Prince is the great-grandson of his namesake Frederick Henry and his wife, Abbie Norman Prince, who established the Trusts in the 1940s. The current F.H. Prince was the Founder and President of CMD Realty and was the President of F.H. Prince & Co., Inc. Patrick Wood-Prince, great, great grandson of F.H. Prince through adoption, has had a successful career in commercial real estate, working with corporations, clients, and non-profits to develop real estate strategies. He has been a Trustee since 2010. While Frederick Prince and Patrick Wood-Prince are the two official legal Trustees, the wife of Frederick Prince, Diana Prince, has become very active in the work of the Foundation.

With a reputation as a collaborative and collegial funder and partner in the philanthropic space, the Prince Charitable Trusts have invested over the years in a diverse array of funding areas with the goal of creating high-impact programming in Chicago, Washington D.C., and Rhode Island. Since 2000, the Trusts have awarded nearly 6,000 grants totaling approximately $100 million, and have funded areas such as arts and culture, land preservation and the environment, health and human services, and various social service agencies. At the same time, the Trusts remain flexible and responsive to the evolving needs of their respective geographic regions. As each succeeding generation oversees the Trusts, the Prince Charitable Trusts staff works collaboratively with the Trustees to ensure that the Foundation’s giving reflects the interests of the family.

THE ORGANIZATION

Prince Charitable Trusts employs 11 employees and a good number of staff have been with the Foundation for very long and productive tenures. These 11 employees are spread across the two permanent offices in Washington D.C. and Chicago, and come together to collaborate on the Rhode Island program. The Washington D.C. office is currently staffed with a Managing Director, part-time office assistant, one senior program officer who works virtually, and two part-time program consultants. This office also works closely with two grants managers in the Chicago office, as well as a director of accounting and a director of human resources. The Chicago office handles all financial work for the three geographic areas including audits, compliance, tax returns, and check dispersements.

The Managing Directors in the D.C. office and in the Chicago office have complete programmatic independence from one another and work separately on their respective grant cycles. At the same time, the Foundation places a strong value on collaboration, shared governance, and decision making, and the two offices work closely together around daily logistics as well as any overarching organizational issues that may arise. The two Managing Directors also work collaboratively to co-direct the Rhode Island program each summer, which is a unique and exceptional opportunity to bring the Trustees and staff members from both offices together. The Rhode Island program helps the Trusts build internal relationships while also working towards the overarching goal of impactful philanthropy.

Prince Charitable Trusts go beyond merely giving dollars within their communities. As a Foundation they are conscientious, thorough, and intimately involved with grantees, and well networked in the communities they serve. The Trusts’ staff have joined many professional associations, sat on boards, and established partnerships over the years with organizations such as the Funder’s Network on Smart Growth and Livable Communities, Grantmakers for the Arts, the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network, the Washington Regional Food Funders, and the MacArthur Fund for Arts and Culture at Prince in Chicago. Often times, the Trusts are the first funders to support new initiatives or enterprises. They also actively convene important regional players to discuss issues and initiatives in key issues areas, while acting as a catalyst to facilitate dialogue about how organizations can come together and collaborate for the largest impact.

GRANTMAKING

Today, most of the Trusts’ grantmaking supports general operations and particular projects and initiatives, though a number of capital grants are awarded each year to organizations with which the Trusts have had a prior giving relationship. The Prince Charitable Trusts has approximately $150 million in assets and award an average of $6 million annually. Grants range from $1,000 to $165,000, with an average grant of about $20,000. Over the past 15 years, 41 percent of grants have been under $10,000; 52 percent of grants have ranged from $10,000 to $49,999; and 6 percent of grants have awarded more than $50,000. The Chicago and D.C. offices each have two annual grant cycles, which focus on their respective program areas. Grantees are vetted by the staff and recommendations are made to the Trustees for approval. Grants are typically one year in length, but often renewable, and the Trusts do some short-term multi-year grants as well.

In 2011, The D.C. office began accepting grant applications by invitation-only and all three offices use an online grants application and management system. Once applications are received, program officers review the applications and conduct research and site visits to ensure diligence on each organization. The top proposals are presented to the Trustees, who decide what will be funded. Though this application and awarding process is the same for the Prince Charitable Trusts as a whole, each of the three geographic areas is responsible for their own programming.

The Washington D.C. Office

Each year the Washington D.C. office awards approximately 40 percent of all of the Prince Charitable Trusts’ grants in two separate grant cycles. In the spring, the D.C. Trust focuses its grantmaking on arts and culture, and community and environment. During the fall grant cycle, the Trust focuses on health and hospital morale, and farm to table initiatives. Since 2000, the  D.C. office has awarded approximately 2,000 grants totaling over $26 million. Over the past 15 years, the D.C. office has given the majority of its funds to environment and community issues (approximately $7.5 million) and health and hospital morale initiatives (approximately $6.8 million). In recent years, the D.C. office has begun to place more giving emphasis on supporting the environment and community, and grantmaking in this area has doubled since 2000. The strategic initiatives for the Washington D.C. office moving forward will certainly include the ongoing protection of the rural Piedmont, along with investments in clean water, support for new farm to table initiatives, and other environmental issues. Grants will continue in arts and culture, health and hospital morale initiatives, and research and advocacy focused on Parkinson’s disease. The D.C. office is on track to award approximately $2.5 million in 2015.

Examples of grants awarded by the Washington D.C. Trust include:

• $165,000 to the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) for general operating support in 2015. Since the beginning of this partnership in 2010, the D.C. Trust has given nearly $1.5 million to the PEC. The PEC was founded in 1975 to promote and protect the Virginia Piedmont’s rural economy, natural resources, and beauty. The D.C. office has supported the PEC’s commitment to land protection, smart growth, transportation efficiency, and has provided general operating support. Recently the Trusts have begun partnering with the PEC to support agricultural initiatives for next-generation farmers.

• $120,000 in 2015 to The Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG), which was formed in response to the Disney campaign to build a park in the Piedmont area. CSG was established to identify and support healthy development that restores the urban cores while preserving the rural character of the region. Prince Charitable Trusts has been the most significant supporter of the Coalition from its inception. The Coalition works very closely with PEC, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Audubon Naturalist Society to preserve the rural character of the Piedmont, promote public transit as an alternative to widespread road construction, and support smart growth in the Washington metropolitan area. Since 2012, the D.C. office has awarded CSG more than $800,000 for regional land use, transportation, and affordable housing campaigns.

• $50,000 in 2013 to the D.C. Promise Neighborhood Initiative. The D.C. Trust was one of the first investors in the D.C. Promise Neighborhood. Inspired by the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, President Obama initiated Promise Neighborhoods – a federally funded program to ensure children complete their education from cradle to college and enter adulthood as successful participants in the 21st century economy and contributors to the civic life of their communities. The Prince Charitable Trusts supported the grant writing that allowed the D.C. Promise Neighborhood to be one of the first five cities to receive an implementation grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The D.C. Trust continues to provide general operating support, gather local funders to support this initiative, and match federal grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

• $50,000 to D.C. Central Kitchen in 2014. The D.C. Central Kitchen is a food recycling and distribution program that trains unemployed adults for food careers and provides healthy school meals. The D.C. Central Kitchen is helping rebuild the food distribution system in the Washington region through social enterprise.

• $50,000 to the Journey Through Hallowed Ground in 2015. The Journey is a designated National Heritage Corridor dedicated to raising awareness of the unparalleled American heritage in the region that extends from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, through Maryland and Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia. With more history than any other region in the nation, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground was initially developed with grants from the Prince Charitable Trusts, which have provided $440,000 in general operating support over the past 10 years. The Journey Partnership offers authentic heritage tourism programs and award-winning educational programs for students of all ages.

The Chicago Office

Since 2000, the Chicago office has awarded 47 percent of all of the Trusts’ grants. Following this same bi-annual grant cycle, the Chicago office awards grants in the areas of social services and health each spring, and distributes grants in arts and culture, and the environment each fall. Over the past 15 years, the Chicago office has awarded approximately 2,300 grants totaling nearly $37 million. The Chicago office has a strong interest in supporting arts and culture, and has given nearly $7 million in this area over the past 15 years. Moving forward, the Chicago Trust intends to focus more on initiatives for youth. The Trust will award approximately $2.5 million in 2015.

The Rhode Island Program

Going back four generations, the Prince family has maintained a deep connection to the Rhode Island region, and specifically to Aquidneck Island. Each summer, the two Trustees of Prince Charitable Trusts and their families spend significant time in Newport, Rhode Island. In late summer, the Trustees and two Managing Directors all meet in Rhode Island to approve approximately 30-40 grants as part of the Rhode Island program. There is one grant cycle per year and the Rhode Island program focuses on supporting initiatives that improve the quality of life for residents of the city of Newport and Aquidneck Island. Generally, the Trust only supports programs that are regional or statewide when these programs have a direct or indirect impact on Newport or Aquidneck Island. Most of the Rhode Island grants focus on providing operating support or are renewal grants from previous years, however there is always a desire to support new projects and initiatives within the region. Over the past 15 years, the Price Charitable Trusts have awarded nearly 700 grants, or 13 percent of its grants through the Rhode Island program, totaling approximately $18.5 million. In 2015, the Rhode Island program will award approximately $1.3 million.

CURRENT SITUATION

The Washington D.C. office and the Rhode Island program have been successfully led by Kristin Pauly over the last eighteen years. She has provided strong leadership within the Washington D.C. community and has contributed to the Trusts in a variety of programmatic areas, though most notably in the environmental space. Since she began in 1997, she has built programs based on the Trustees’ interests, while also leveraging her own experience, creativity, and network contacts. Actively involved in the community, Kristin served on the Board of the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, and for the Center for Watershed Protection. Additionally, she is a founder of the Chesapeake Bay Funders Network and also served as Co-Chair. She is also a founding member and served as Co-Chair of the Washington Regional Food Funders. These connections, coupled with her environmental experience, made Kristin an invaluable part of the Trusts’ work in the Piedmont region, particularly in seeking innovative approaches to protecting the land and water in this area, as well as supporting development of local food system initiatives. Over the years, she has successfully brought together and collaborated with other key funders in the region on various initiatives. Though she is retiring, Kristin has set the stage for an ongoing and excellent working partnership between the Trustees and staff, and outside organizations.

In the Washington D.C. office, programmatic work over the years has been stewarded by a close-knit team of independent consultants who each have had a long-standing relationship with the Trusts. These consultants serve in the role of program officers, and as a team they share grantees, work collaboratively across many program areas, and work closely with the Managing Director to support the interests of the Trustees and award the most high-impact grants possible. Though these three program staff work remotely, the Trust currently rents space from Frederick Henry Prince IV in downtown Washington D.C. where the Managing Director and a part-time office assistant are housed. With a new Managing Director joining the organization, there is an opportunity to reimagine what the ideal staffing model will look like while taking into consideration the needs of the organization and the long-term plans of these talented individuals. Staffing decisions are made in collaboration with the Executive Director/Managing Director in Chicago, as well as the Trustees.

In partnership with the Trustees, the Managing Director of the Washington D.C. office has wide-ranging independence over the grantmaking program. The back office support for the D.C. office comes from the Chicago office – ranging from grant management support, to financial and human resources. The coordination, cooperation, and support between these two offices is unparalleled and as a result, this is a unique opportunity for a new Managing Director to focus his/her energy on stewarding and supporting committed Trustees, engaging in relationship building with grantees and partners, and leading and innovating creative programming.

While there is no need for an overhaul in the strategic direction of the Washington D.C. or Rhode Island portfolios, there remains an openness and excitement for new programming ideas, partnerships, and interest areas. The Trustees, in conjuncture with the staff, have brought a great deal of diversity of thought to the interest areas and funding opportunities at the Trusts over the years, and they are seeking a new leader who can be a thought-partner in this work and continue the legacy of impactful grantmaking.

MANAGING DIRECTOR

The Managing Director will report to the two Trustees on programmatic issues and the Executive Director/Managing Director of the Chicago office on overarching administrative and operational issues at the Trusts. The Managing Director will oversee the day-to-day programmatic functions of the Washington D.C. Trust, as well as co-direct the Rhode Island program. The broad objectives for the new Managing Director are as follows:

• Lead the Washington D.C. office and co-direct the Rhode Island program to identify promising strategies, activities, and partnerships. Continue the solid work that currently exists while supporting its tradition of innovation and impactful grantmaking.
• Build confidence with the Trustees to advance their goals, direction, and priorities. Ensure that the Trustees’ passions are captured and translated into innovative programming and grantmaking opportunities, and be a solid sounding board, resource, and partner to the Trustees.
• Partner seamlessly with the Executive Director/Managing Director of the Chicago office to ensure smooth, responsible administration of the organization writ-large, as well as parity across the two geographic offices.
• Structure, support, and monitor the grantmaking programs. Steward the successful programs and relationships that already exist, while forging possible new pathways for potential impact that aligns with the Prince Charitable Trusts’ interests.
• Build the structure, and identify and support a team that will allow for the work of the Trust to be completed in the most efficient and professional manner. Reinforce a culture of transparency, collaboration, open communication, accountability, and results.
• Exercise responsible stewardship of the Trusts’ resources and provide sound fiscal and administrative management to ensure that all of the Foundation’s activities comply with legal standards and requirements.
• Represent the Foundation at professional gatherings and to a broader community of organizations and partners to maintain leadership in key programmatic areas as well as provide added value beyond financial support.
• As needed, refine internal organizational, administrative, and grant-making processes and systems.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

The Washington D.C. office seeks a Managing Director who will be energized at the prospect of working with and supporting family Trustees, and who will be enthusiastic about working as a collaborative partner with the Chicago staff of the Trusts. An ideal candidate will bring the following professional and personal attributes:

• Strong resonance with the Price Charitable Trusts’ current grantmaking priorities. Specific experience and/or interest in one or more of the Trusts’ program areas would be an asset, especially in the environmental space.
• Track record of strong leadership at a mission-driven philanthropic or non-profit organization, and knowledge of the non-profit sector.
• The ability to successfully recruit program staff and build a cohesive team while being an efficient manager is essential.
• A record of developing creative connections and programmatic ideas that will help the Trustees ensure the highest level of impact in their giving. Someone with broad interests and an open-mind to new ideas.
• The ability to support, accommodate, and meet the expectations of a committed and intelligent family by being smart, strategic, prepared, and flexible.
• A reputation for outstanding collegial, interpersonal, and communication skills, who can garner respect from Trustees, staff, grantees, and other important external relationships. An excellent relationship manager.
• An extensive network in the non-profit and philanthropic space, as well as in key programmatic areas that will foster new partnerships and engagements. Networks and familiarity with the D.C. region is valuable.
• Familiarity with family philanthropy and/or significant comfort with family dynamics and how that plays out in an organizational context and decision-making.
• A commitment to accountability, transparency, collaboration, open communication, and sound judgment. Comfort with a certain amount of organizational ambiguity.
• A compassionate, considerate, accommodating, roll-up-one’s-sleeves, self-starter with a genuine interest in philanthropy. An outgoing, open personality with tenacity, pragmatism, patience, attention to detail, and the utmost integrity.
• A deep listener, with a sense of humor, energy, enthusiasm, and a down to earth demeanor are all essential.
• Availability to make frequent trips to Newport, Rhode Island during the summer months each year to meet with grantees and participate in site visits, and occasional trips to Chicago.

More information on the Prince Charitable Trusts can be found at: http://www.princetrusts.org/.

APPLICATIONS, INQUIRIES, AND NOMINATIONS

All inquiries, nominations, referrals, and resumes w/ cover letters, should be sent electronically to:

Rebecca Swartz, Principal

Randi Alberry, Associate

263 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210

www.imsearch.com/5487

Isaacson, Miller

The Prince Charitable Trusts is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer.