Tuesday, September 17, 2013
TCC Group is pleased to announce that Chris Cardona, a highly respected leader with more than 16 years of experience in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, will serve as Director of Philanthropy. Since joining the firm in 2008, Cardona has helped numerous foundations develop and implement new strategies, build grantee capacity and evaluate programs.“Chris has developed meaningful client relationships and has deep experience with strategic philanthropy,” said TCC Group President and CEO Richard Mittenthal. “He’s helped build our philanthropy practice in the past several years, and we’re confident he’ll continue to move our work forward successfully.”
"Foundations continue to innovate and hold themselves to higher standards," said Cardona. "I look forward to working with my colleagues at TCC Group to strengthen the field of philanthropy and, above all, provide our clients with the highest quality of service."
Since joining TCC, Cardona has led projects for clients including the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Foundation for Newark’s Future, the Arcus Foundation, Echoing Green, the Tinker Foundation, the D5 Coalition, the Four Freedoms Fund, the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, America’s Voice Education Fund, the Wallace Foundation, Wellspring Advisors, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has also coached nonprofit executive directors on strategies for financial sustainability through the Challenge Fund for Journalism and the Ford Foundation’s Sustainable Media Organizations initiative.
Throughout his career, Cardona has been active in making philanthropy accessible to underserved communities. He has served as a board member of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, and as an independent consultant to grantmaker affinity groups, including Women & Philanthropy, the Joint Affinity Groups and Disability Funders Network. For three years, Cardona led Hispanics in Philanthropy's operations in the Northeast region, opening a New York office, hiring staff, raising funds to support a $1.6 million annual grantmaking portfolio and managing seven sites of the Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities. Cardona was involved in founding the NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund, a giving circle of young corporate and nonprofit professionals who support social entrepreneurs in the five boroughs of New York City. He chaired the circle’s Advisory Council for four years. He currently sits on Philanthropy New York’s Increasing Diversity in Philanthropy Committee and chairs its Data Collection Working Group. He blogs about philanthropy and democracy at cardonac.net.
Cardona earned his B.A. in Political Science from Williams College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from U.C. Berkeley, with subfields in comparative politics, Latin America and research methods. The recipient of fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright/IIE and the Ford-Mellon Minority Research Scholars Program, Cardona has presented his research at national and international conferences, and participated in a four-country survey research project on interest regimes and civic engagement in Latin America.