State of Giving: First Tracks and First Look

As part of our work to create an enduring philanthropic community for all the people of Park City, Park City Community Foundation hosted a Crest Speaker Series event on January 30, 2018. The event included a first tracks ski morning followed by breakfast at Park City Mountain. After several runs, we enjoyed a panel discussion among philanthropy experts on the “State of Giving” using the Giving State report as reference point.

The panelists were Lindsey Kneuven, Head of Social Impact at Pluralsight, Jacob Allen, Cicero Group Partner and Director of Cicero Social Impact, and Tom Raffa, CPA, Founder and CEO of Raffa and current Park City Community Foundation board member. Katie Wright, Executive Director of Park City Community Foundation, moderated.

Lindsey Kneuven | Head of Social Impact, Pluralsight

Lindsey Kneuven is the head of social impact at Pluralsight, a fast-growing enterprise technology learning platform. In her role, Lindsey leads all global philanthropic initiatives, implementing strategies that align Pluralsight’s product, culture, community, people and brand to make a meaningful impact on the way the world learns.

Prior to joining Pluralsight, Lindsey served as the chief impact officer at Cotopaxi. Lindsey also held senior positions at several notable nonprofit and private organizations, including Salesforce.org, Nuru International and Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

She has been recognized for her outstanding work on several occasions. She was awarded the Leigh Stillwell Award for Excellence in 2015. She has also been recognized by Utah Business as one of 30 Women to Watch and by the Community Foundation of Utah as an Enlightened 50. Most recently, she was selected as a recipient of the 2017 Women in Tech Awards for her inspiration in the technology community.

Hear Katie Wright and Tom Raffa preview the topic on KPCW. Click HERE.

Jacob Allen | Cicero Group Partner and Director of Cicero Social Impact

Jacob Allen is Managing Director of Cicero Social Impact, which partners with mission-driven leaders to maximize their impact through strategy, monitoring and evaluation, performance management, and donor and beneficiary analytics. At Cicero and elsewhere he has worked with dozens of clients in the US and around the world, including Prudential, the George W. Bush Institute, the Clinton Foundation, United Way, Goldman Sachs, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Nature Conservancy, the National Academy Foundation, and many more. He co-wrote the Giving State, the first comprehensive, data-driven assessment of Utah’s philanthropic sector as well as Stop Starving Scale: Unlocking the Potential of Global NGOs, which outlines how funders have fueled the growth of global NGOs in recent years but imposed restrictions that thwart organizations’ ability to achieve impact at scale. Jacob currently serves on the international board of Mary’s Meals, which provides a daily meal in school to over one million children living in desperate poverty.

Tom Raffa | CEO of the Raffa Companies

Tom Raffa, CEO of the Raffa Companies has spent his career catalyzing positive systemic change throughout the country and beyond. Organizations he’s created and incubated, the multiple levels of support he’s provided and channeled, have been instrumental in advancing the US nonprofit and emerging social sector. Tom’s brainchild for moving corporate philanthropy from good intentions to strategic impact, Companies for Causes, was awarded the Pearl Foundation Award for Innovation in Philanthropy and today, with a new consulting enterprise in India, Vardaan, Tom seeks to drive effective philanthropy across a new landscape of mandated corporate responsibility opportunity. More than just an “early adopter”, Tom has been an industry pioneer since 1984, committed to using his business enterprise as a force for good. Building multiple companies over three decades, Raffa, PC – a certified B Corp and Top 100 nationally-ranked, woman-owned CPA and advisory firm, Raffa Financial Services, Inc., Raffa Wealth Management, Aspire and Aspire Labs, Raffa Social Capital Advisors and Raffa Risk Management with more than 300 professionals devoted to serving the social sector and with a deep bench of expertise and service lines to support almost every aspect of the nonprofit and social impact sectors from traditional audits, accounting and tax to niches in IT, HR, wealth management, governance, benefits and insurance, Raffa “Do More” companies’ capacity to serve and strengthen nonprofits and social enterprise remains unparalleled.

Thank you to our sponsor Vail Resorts and EpicPromise for making this event possible.

As organizer of Live PC Give PC, Park City Community Foundation builds broad engagement and diverse support to create wide community impact, and helps get financial support to the nonprofits that make our community a better place. The signature Crest Speaker Series is open to Pinnacle, Apex, Summit, and Crest level donors, as well as special invited guests. If you would like to learn more about becoming a Crest level donor, please email Sam at sam@parkcitycf.org.

We look forward to seeing you at future events!