Pittsburgh Foundation names Riverlife veteran next head
Nonprofit will have first woman leader
The Pittsburgh Foundation has turned to a nonprofit executive who spent more than a decade running the city’s Riverlife organization to become its next president.
Lisa Schroeder will be the first woman to lead the foundation when she assumes the job in June.
She succeeds Maxwell King, whose five-year contract with the foundation expires this summer.
The foundation’s 17-member board approved Ms. Schroeder’s appointment Friday in a unanimous vote.
A community philanthropy with assets of over $1 billion, the foundation last year distributed $49 million in grants that benefit causes ranging from helping the homeless and hungry to education, arts and culture.
The Pittsburgh Foundation ranked as the fourth-largest philanthropy in the region based on total grants distributed in 2017, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s latest rankings. The Richard King Mellon Foundation was No. 1.
“I was honored just to be in the running as a candidate for president of one of the most effective and caring community foundations in the country,” Ms. Schroeder said in a statement Monday.
Since 2015, Ms. Schroeder, 62, has been the president and chief executive of Parks & People Foundation, a Baltimore nonprofit that develops initiatives to connect local residents with the parks and other outdoor
spaces in that city.
Among her accomplishments there were completing a $14 million capital campaign that funded a nine-acre headquarters campus for the nonprofit in West Baltimore, completing 147 projects to reduce contaminated storm runoff in the city, and launching the “Every Kid Deserves a Park” program to revitalize parks in underserved neighborhoods.
Prior to that, the Baltimore native spent 15 years at Riverlife, a Pittsburgh nonprofit that works to redevelop and promote the city’s riverfronts.
As president and CEO of the organization from 2002 to 2015, she oversaw refurbishment of 13 miles of urban waterfront trails and 850 acres of public space known as Three Rivers Park.
From 2008 to 2011, she also was a member of the board of the Pittsburgh Foundation.
“I think I learned many of the most important lessons in my life in Pittsburgh and serving on the board of the foundation,” she said Monday in a phone interview. “I always thought it was a place where important and sometimes controversial issues were welcome.”
Since her tenure on its board, the foundation launched 100 Percent Pittsburgh, a strategic focus on grantmaking that assists segments of the population that haven’t benefited fully from the region’s transition from heavy manufacturing hub to a center for technology, medicine and higher education.
The foundation estimates 30 percent of the region’s residents are held back from success because of issues including poverty and racism.
That mission and approach to grantmaking by the foundation was “a fundamental part of the attraction of the role and position and the potential for me,” Ms. Schroeder said.
“Pittsburgh reflects the issues of many urban areas where there are strong gaps between those at the top and those at the bottom,” she said. “There’s a strong need for equitable access to resources.”
She saw fallout from race and equity issues almost immediately after arriving in Baltimore to start her job at Parks & People.
In April 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died while in police custody, and riots broke out on the Parks & People campus.
“We saw it firsthand in a very short number of hours,” Ms. Schroeder recalled. “There was a disattachment between young people in East and West Baltimore neighborhoods and the fabric of the city in which they live.”
In the aftermath, Parks & People refocused and restructured its mission to provide more parks and outdoor resources for struggling Baltimore neighborhoods.
Ms. Schroeder said she was honored to be named the Pittsburgh Foundation’s first female president and noted that the foundation also has a female chair, Edith Shapira.
“Hopefully we will make history,” Ms. Schroeder said.
She described Mr. King, who has led the foundation for almost five years, as “a visionary, mentor and a guide for translating public dreams into action.”
“It is awe-inspiring to be following Max King into this position,” she said.
Dr. Shapira said among the factors that made Ms. Schroeder the top candidate for the job is “her remarkable talent for bringing together stakeholders across a wide range of business, ideological and political interests to benefit the entire community.”
Other local philanthropic leaders praised the selection of Ms. Schroeder.
“I think she’s a terrific choice,” said Grant Oliphant, president of the Heinz Endowments who was president of the Pittsburgh Foundation when Ms. Schroeder served on its board.
He also chaired the board of Riverlife during part of her tenure there.
“I’m hoping that her environmental background is something she’ll bring to her role at the foundation,” Mr. Oliphant said.
“Under Lisa, Riverlife accomplished most of its stated vision,” he said. “She mapped out with the board a broad vision for what our riverfronts ought to look like and very methodically delivered on that vision.”
On her being named the first female leader of the community foundation, Mr. Oliphant said, “It’s always significant when one of these barriers gets broken. But more importantly, she’s just a good leader and deserves the job in her own right.”
Gregg Behr, executive director of the Grable Foundation, said that while Ms. Schroeder was at the helm of Riverlife, she “demonstrated time and again her genuine commitment to creativity, inclusiveness and doing what it takes to achieve world-class results.”
“She’s going to bring to town some superpowers that will open up possibilities for our community.”