David’s career spans a period of more than 35 years in both the corporate and nonprofit sectors. His experience includes: founding Executive Director/CEO of a statewide community foundation, President/CEO of a Midwest community foundation, and Interim CEO of an internationally focused foundation in New York City. He began his career with the Committee for Economic Development, a New York-based economic policy research “think tank,” and from there moved to the Chemical Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase), where he was one of the founding officers of the bank’s Endowment Management Group, which at the time was the largest provider of investment and financial services for numerous major foundations and educational institutions throughout the U.S. Following an internal reorganization, David subsequently moved to a Chemical Bank subsidiary (along with all of its endowment clients), where he became Corporate Vice President/Chief Administrative Officer/Director of Business Development of the new firm’s Endowment Management Center. After retiring from the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation in 2002, he took a brief “sabbatical” to complete a book manuscript and go on national tour. Thereafter, David served for two years as a Senior Advisor to the United Nations World Food Programme with headquarters in New York and Rome. Since relocating to Lugano, Switzerland in mid-2006, David has been providing independent consulting services for a major Dutch-based humanitarian aid organization.
Throughout his life, and following in a long family tradition of service, David has been active as a volunteer and board member of scores of local, national and international foundations and nonprofit organizations, large and small. During the transition following President Clinton’s initial election, David authored the original concept paper for a national service program patterned after his grandfather’s Civilian Conservation Corps. The concept emerged as the AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps, and David was appointed as a member of the NCCC’s national board of directors. He received a presidential appointment in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission, and again in 1994 by President William J. Clinton. While on the Commission, he and his fellow commissioners successfully raised the more than $52 million required to construct the Memorial from private sector and government sources. During his foundation management tenures, David was active on several Council on Foundation committees, including the Community Foundation CEO Network, the Legislative Network, the Legal and Legislative Action Team, and has been a presenter at the Annual Community Foundations Conference.
David sums up his philosophy as follows: “Philanthropy comes in all shapes and sizes, and there is no standard template that fits any individual philanthropic enterprise. But as the sector becomes more and more globalized, and as the “business” of philanthropy becomes understood by more and more people the world over, the opportunities for philanthropy to have tremendous impact on the lives of millions of people are virtually limitless. Be it the growth of the community foundation concept worldwide (of which I am a strong proponent), the continued increase in global corporate philanthropy, or the burgeoning private individual philanthropic activity, this is an era of what I would call the “Revolution of Good Works.” Government alone cannot and should not be expected to be the answer to all of humankind’s needs, but a partnership of government and philanthropy can accomplish wonders. I hope that my accumulated experience might make some small contribution to that end, making the “business” of philanthropy stronger and more effective.”
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