Robert E. Eckardt, executive vice president of the Cleveland Foundation, has worn many hats during his long and accomplished career with the foundation. Eckardt joined the program staff in 1982 with a master’s degree in public health and a certificate in gerontology from the University of Michigan (U of M), and he earned his doctorate in public health at U of M during his rise to the position of senior program officer.
In the fields of health and aging, he initiated several model demonstration projects, such as Successful Aging; helped to coordinate the community’s response to the AIDS crisis; and nurtured cooperation within Cleveland’s world-renowned but highly competitive medical institutions (see the Cleveland Foundation Study Commission on Medical Research and Education). Eckardt also conducted the foundation’s initial study of environmental issues and drafted the strategy for environmental grantmaking, which began in 1990 as part of his program portfolio.
On the national level, Eckardt sparked the creation of professional associations aimed at helping philanthropic organizations share expertise and resources, set standards and speak with a collective voice. Among those he helped to establish and lead are Grantmakers in Aging, Funders Concerned about AIDS and Grantmakers in Health. Eckardt also shares his wisdom as a consultant to foundations and nonprofits around the country that have sought him out for guidance on program development, strategic grantmaking and evaluation. Among the new administrative responsibilities he began to assume in the mid-1990s was management of the Cleveland Foundation’s first systematic program evaluation effort.
Today, Eckardt’s most important role is to provide overall direction for the foundation’s grantmaking. Acting in that capacity at the behest of the foundation’s executive director Steven A. Minter and Minter’s successor, Ronald B. Richard, Eckardt collaborates with board, staff and community leaders to pinpoint the region’s critical needs and leverage resources to help meet them. He is frequently the go-to person for special programmatic assignments.
Eckardt led the foundation’s response to the 2008 economic downturn, for example. He and the program staff held a series of community conversations with some 250 charitable organizations to learn how grantees were faring and how the foundation could help them weather the crisis. Monies were subsequently redirected from the foundation’s major capital grants efforts to immediate needs. Eckardt then worked with grantees to streamline and shorten grant-processing times in order to distribute awards more quickly. A survey conducted in 2010 by the Center for Effective Philanthropy numbered the Cleveland Foundation among the funders perceived by their grantees to have been the most helpful during this difficult time.
Having been promoted to executive vice president by Ronn Richard in 2010, Eckardt now helps to oversee all aspects of the foundation’s management.
In recognition of the high standard of philanthropic leadership he has set, Robert E. Eckardt received the Council on Foundations’ 2010 Distinguished Grantmaker Award, one of the field’s most prestigious and respected honors.