Welcome to the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy, based at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management.
Since its founding in 2008, the Sillerman Center has engaged established and emerging philanthropists and their advisors, undergraduates and graduate students to achieve our mission to inform and advance social justice philanthropy.
As interim director, I am committed to further advancing Sillerman’s work on social justice philanthropy, which takes on new meaning at a time of accelerating technological change and deep divides in society.
I will be building on the highly valued leadership of Susan Eaton, who has stepped down from her faculty role at Heller, and the continued staff leadership of Sheryl Seller. By way of self-introduction, my background includes research leadership centered on multi-stakeholder collaboration in society and high-performance work systems, as well as service leading Heller’s former social impact MBA program and prior leadership as dean of the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Looking ahead, I have identified the following topics as potential priorities for advancing our social justice mission – subject to inputs from the Sillerman community:
- Continued outreach with students around giving circles, internships in philanthropy, and other ways of advancing next generation understanding and talent for philanthropy through research and practice.
- Building on prior Sillerman research initiatives on civil rights, civil repair, and social justice, with a particular focus on expanding pilot projects to achieve large-scale impacts.
- Introducing a new Sillerman research initiative on the role of multi-stakeholder consortia in philanthropy to accomplish together what individual organizations can’t do separately.
- Introducing a new professional development seminar, in partnership with Heller’s Executive Education program and the Doris Duke Foundation, developing high performance/high involvement work and organizational practices in philanthropic and other social impact organizations.
I look forward to collaborating on further advancing the impacts of philanthropy that are so deeply needed today.
Warmest regards,
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld
joelcg@brandeis.edu