New Director Envisions Major Growth for Brookline Community Foundation

It may be the most visible charity in town, but the Brookline Community Foundation still seems "small" to Richard Ward.

That's probably one reason why Ward got his new job as executive director of the Brookline Community Foundation, where leaders want to stage a major transition in how the organization operates in the next several years.

"We're small right now, but we could be much bigger and we could do much more," Ward said.

Ward joins the foundation as its leaders are sowing the seeds for a major expansion. Judith Kidd, the chair of the foundation's board of directors, said she'd like to see the foundation's endowment funds – now only large enough to cover the organization's small operating budget – grow large enough to support the foundation's grant making and other programs.

Her personal goal is to triple the foundation's assets – which peaked at $6.5 million  before the recession deliver a major blow – though she doesn't expect to see it happen within the two remaining two years as chair.

"It's early days yet," she said.

Kidd believes Ward is just the man to engineer growth on that scale. A former banker, Ward got his start in non-profit work running the West Roxbury Boys and Girls Club and moved on to help reorganize leadership at a number of community organizations, eventually earning him a reputation as – in his own words – a "turnaround artist."

As a financial guy, Ward said he was always particularly interested in the philanthropy that drove the many programs he oversaw. So when an opportunity opened up across the state at the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, Ward decided to throw his hat in the ring.

"I just felt at that point that that was what I wanted to do," he said. "I felt like I'd like the opportunity to channel resources where they're most needed."

From there, Ward moved through a variety of grant-related positions at the Boston Community Foundation, one of the oldest and largest organizations of its kind in the country. He had worked for the foundation for nearly 10 years by the time he left to work briefly work on his own non-profit.

At the Brookline Community Foundation, Ward will be working with far fewer resources and just a few full-time employees. But he said he sees a plenty of untapped potential in Brookline.

"It's really a community that has so much opportunity, philanthropically to address the issues before it," he said. "This is really a new experience, a new opportunity."