The Learning Conference 2013

Jonathan Sotsky serves as the Director of Strategy & Assessment at Knight Foundation. He manages evaluation and learning initiatives that inform the foundation’s programs in media innovation, community engagement and the arts. Sotsky previously worked as a consultant at Mission Measurement, where he partnered with funders and nonprofits to develop performance measurement systems to analyze their social impact. Before that, Sotsky was a financial management consultant in the media practice at IBM. He serves on the board of Media Impact Funders and graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with a bachelor’s degree in applied economics.

Debra Perez is the assistant vice president for research and evaluation, at Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Among other priorities, Dr. Pérez is responsible for supporting advancing the unit’s goals of learning and spreading the Foundation’s lessons from our past and current investments. She received her bachelor's degree from Douglass College, a master’s degree from University of Kent, and a master's degree in public administration from Baruch College. She completed her interfaculty doctoral program at Harvard University, receiving a PhD in health policy. She was the recipient of W.K. Kellogg Foundation Scholar’s in Health Policy program and a National Urban and Rural Fellow.

As Manager, Research and Evaluation at the Irvine Foundation, Kevin Rafter works with program teams to develop evaluation and research projects that enable us to learn from our work, refine our strategies and demonstrate the impact of promising approaches. He also works with our Communications team to communicate findings and leads our annual foundation-wide assessments. Prior to joining Irvine, Rafter conducted research on the nonprofit sector at the University of San Francisco. Rafter has a doctoral degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He serves on the advisory board of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

Kimberly M. James serves as an Evaluation Officer in the Learning and Impact unit at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this position, James provides leadership and technical assistance in the Foundation’s evaluation-related functions, which includes developing evaluation frameworks; identifying indicators that measure and assess the Foundation’s overall progress and impact; partnering with the Foundation’s programming staff to integrate learning and evaluation activities; and collaborating with external partners to advance practices in philanthropy and the evaluation field.

Josie Heath is president of The Community Foundation- Boulder County, Colorado. She served eight years as County Commissioner and was a 1990 candidate for the United States Senate. She taught at the Kennedy School at Harvard, and later served as the Assistant to the Director of the White House Office of National Service in the Clinton administration. Heath was a member of Harvard’s Project Liberty team working with elected officials in Central and Eastern Europe and served four years as a member of the Council on Foundations International Committee. She is currently a participant in the “Second Century project”, writing about the future of community foundations. Heath has a B.S. from Eastern Oregon University and a M.S. from the University of Wisconsin.