About Cynthia Gibson
Principal Cynthia M. Gibson, Ph.D., has more than 25 years of experience as a consultant, senior staffperson, and adviser for hundreds of leading U.S. and international nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. As principal of Cynthesis Consulting, she provides strategic planning and positioning; program development, design, and oversight; evaluation; communications and marketing; and public policy research/analysis.
For foundations—national, corporate, community, and family—she has researched, designed, launched, and evaluated multi-million dollar grant making strategies that had measurable results and impact. As a communications and development professional, she raised millions of dollars and enhanced the visibility and reputation of nonprofits and public foundations through strategic communications, positioning, and marketing. For both, she has produced scores of publications and marketing materials that have influenced national discourse on important issues, designed new programs and evaluated existing ones, and developed strategic plans that have deepened the influence and reach of major organizations.
As a program officer in Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Strengthening U.S. Democracy area, Gibson developed and oversaw grantmaking programs that received national acclaim. In addition to being recognized as one of the Nonprofit Times’ “Power and Influence Top 50” for her leadership on social sector infrastructure development, Gibson authored publications that are still standards for the youth civic engagement field and co-led national initiatives advocating for new approaches to school-based civic education.
Cynthia is also known for her efforts to advance participatory and deliberative practice in health, civic engagement/democracy, and, especially, philanthropy. In 2007 for the Case Foundation, Gibson authored Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement, which was a blueprint for one of the first participatory philanthropy initiatives by a national foundation that she helped to develop and that was highlighted in The New York Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. In 2012-2014, she worked with a network of 6o+ community foundations to create a new framework for this constituency emphasizing civic and resident engagement in community foundations’ efforts. In 2017 to 2020, Gibson authored two nationally distributed monographs for the Ford Foundation and Candid/GrantCraft on participatory grantmaking. She also designed/led participatory grantmaking projects for the Ford and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations and developed a typology for larger foundations to use in assessing their participatory practices.
A nationally recognized expert on philanthropy, nonprofits, democracy, and civic engagement, Cynthia is a thought leader whose articles, blog posts, and other writings have fueled national conversations about these issues. She has taught at the New School University’s Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy; was a senior fellow at Tufts University; and served as a member of numerous committees, selection panels, and boards, including VolunteerMatch.org, Mobilize.org, Nonprofit Quarterly, Public Allies, Public Conversations Project, and Idealist.org. Gibson has a B.A. in psychology from Pennsylvania State University; an M.S.W. from Catholic University; and a Ph.D. in social policy from Rutgers University.
Earlier in her career, Gibson served in senior staff positions at the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Partnership for Democracy. As an associate at People for the American Way, Gibson produced several videos with television producer Norman Lear and created the nation’s first videotape library on ultrafundamentalism that became an important resource for journalists and fundraising tool for the organization.
Approach
Working with a diverse group of thought leaders and practitioners who are bringing a more open source approach to nonprofit management and strategic philanthropy, Cynthesis Consulting belives that effective consulting needs to harness a broad spectrum of collective knowledge from and for diverse groups of individuals, nonprofits, and foundations so they can identify, test, implement, and evaluate solutions with the potential for real impact.
This belief stems from Cynthesis Consulting’s deep experience with community/participatory-centered approaches in philanthropy, public problem solving, and deliberative democracy—all of which prioritize listening to and learning from the people and communities most affected by social, economic, political, and environmental challenges and seeing them as the experts in how they can best be resolved.
As a thought leader, practitioner, scholar, and consultant, Principal Cynthia Gibson has been engaged in numerous efforts to advance these approaches with the goal of embedding them as core elements of organizations’ ethos, mission, and activities. To do so, she serves as a:
Connector who brings together diverse individuals and organizations at the local and national levels—as well as across different fields and issue foci—to facilitate and find consensus on difficult issues and facilitate deeper collaboration.
Networker whose periodic emails curate and provide timely and useful information for an audience of 500-plus individuals representing a wide range of sectors.
Communicator whose deep experience in strategic communications and marketing—including digital/social media—that has helped to advance important philanthropic issues and program initiatives and fuel national conversations and debate on important public policy issues.
“Pracademic” whose academic credentials and hands-on experience with a wide range of nonprofits gives her the ability to design and use research studies that tell us what we need to know about a problem and help those working at the grassroots level identify and implement the most effective ways to address it.
Overally, Cynthesis Consulting uses an approach that is participatory, transparent, experiential, thoughtful, and collaborative
Straight talk, substance, and efficiency are valued over jargon, complicated processes, and shiny objects. And, whenever possible, a sense of humor and fun.