Melissa Berman: President & CEO, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc.

By Caroline Cox

As one of the largest philanthropic service organizations, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has reportedly overseen more than $3 billion in donations and grant-making globally. The organization began with the passionate philanthropic efforts of John D. Rockefeller Sr. in the 1890s. Today, it is the leading advisory and management service connecting donors to charities around the world. By helping people pinpoint their philanthropic goals and the problems they want to solve, RPA helps establish relationships and facilitate giving in more than 70 countries.

Berman has served at the helm of RPA for more than a decade. She’s been featured in several publications, works at Columbia University’s Business School as an adjunct professor and judges the presidential Ron Brown Award for Corporate Citizenship.

PINK: How does your organization improve the community?

Melissa Berman: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors helps donors with a philanthropic roadmap to achieve their goals for giving. Through building trust-based relationships, we assist donors in every philanthropic issue and through every stage, from defining a vision and goals to creating criteria and programs, to making and monitoring grants. We’ve overseen funding for everything from recovery in the Gulf Coast to education reform to economic development opportunities for Tibetan communities in China.

PINK: What methods of outreach do you use?

MB: Because of the personal nature of our work, our outreach is very relationship-based. We meet and interact with donors, gatekeepers, foundations and others in the philanthropic community who do good things in the world. We do  traditional outreach – speaking at conferences, acting as a resource in the media. The personal connection has always been the most valuable resource for us. The most important part of helping people with their philanthropy is recognizing how they want to make a change in the world. It has to align with their principles and agenda.

PINK: What’s been your proudest moment in your organization?

MB: We helped a donor based in California develop a loan-forgiveness program with Stanford so students who want to go into public service or the nonprofit sector don’t have to make a job decision based on their loan burden.

We were also incredibly proud to be recently selected by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a series of guides, videos and profiles to inform people who were starting to think seriously about philanthropy. That really told us we were achieving our mission, and it challenged us to capture in words and images the expertise we’ve developed over the years.