President and CEO, The Minneapolis Foundation

As president and CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, Emmett D. Carson provides overall vision, leadership and motivation for one of the largest, oldest and most complex community foundations in the country. He oversees the Foundation’s grantmaking, loan making, communications, fund development and investment management activities. As external spokesperson, he is responsible for developing collaborative relationships with all sectors and segments of the community as well as with other organizations nationwide. Since his arrival in 1994, the Foundation has embarked on a ten-year $20 million initiative to improve the lives of children and families in poverty, raised record annual gifts ($46 million in fiscal year 1999) and increased total assets under management from $186 million to over $400 million.

Carson came to The Minneapolis Foundation from the Ford Foundation in New York, where he spent five years as program officer, first in the area of social justice and then in governance and public policy. Responsible for the Foundation’s domestic and international support of community foundations and the nonprofit sector, Carson managed a $10 million grantmaking budget that reached across the country and as far as Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Prior to that he served as project director of the Study on Black Philanthropy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C., where he designed and directed the first national study of the charitable giving and volunteer behavior of black and white Americans. Earlier in his career, Carson taught research and public policy courses as an adjunct professor in the Afro-American Studies program at the University of Maryland and served as a legislative research analyst at The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

A native of Chicago, Carson received a Phi Beta Kappa bachelor’s degree in economics from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and M.P.A. and Ph.D. degrees in public and international affairs from Princeton University. He is the author of several books and dozens of articles on American philanthropy. He serves on several nonprofit boards and is a widely-recognized speaker and trainer on philanthropy, diversity and organizational development issues in the U.S. and abroad.

Dr. Carson and the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation

In October of 2005, Louisiana governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco announced a first round of board selections for the newly formed Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF). Dr. Emmett Carson, chair of the national Council on Foundations' board of directors and president and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation, will serve as interim CEO, while Xavier University of Louisiana president Norman Francis will serve as chairman of the new board. The nonprofit foundation was established to accept donations that will be used to meet the needs of the thousands of Louisiana citizens whose lives have been devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The foundation, formed by Governor Blanco during the first week following Hurricane Katrina, assembled some of the best and brightest officers from the foundation community nationwide to help design a high-performing, accountable organization. Among leaders invited to participate in planning sessions were foundation program officers central to the establishment of guidelines and funding principles designed in the aftermath of 9/11 in New York. Significant financial and volunteer services to start up the foundation have been donated by Ohio-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation. The foundation is also receiving support and in-kind services from Paul Pastorek of Adams and Reese, providing pro bono legal services, and the America’s WETLAND Foundation, providing management, media and corporate outreach services.

In the new fund’s transition and developmental period, Dr. Carson has accepted the governor’s invitation to serve as a loaned executive CEO for the LDRF. “Dr. Carson is well-known and respected for assisting foundations around the world in developing grantmaking programs that improve and strengthen local communities,” said Blanco. "He will bring unique expertise and oversight from his position as Chair of the Council on Foundations, the nation’s most recognized gathering of foundation leaders."

A practitioner-scholar, Dr. Carson has developed an international reputation for innovative philanthropy and for conducting research that has helped to define key trends in the nonprofit sector. He has published over 75 works on philanthropy and social justice issues. Previously, Dr. Carson was the first manager of the Ford Foundation's international and U.S. grantmaking program on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. He also has worked for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Congressional Research Service, where he conducted public policy research.

The LDRF was created to help attract funds to a central Louisiana disaster recovery effort that would work with well-established community grants-making foundations and nonprofit agencies, such as United Way, to efficiently and effectively reach organizations working with those most in need. It has been recognized as one of three funds created by the Governors of states impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by USA Freedom Corps and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. The Foundation is also designed to support long-term family restoration and recovery by focusing on education, housing, health care, legal assistance and jobs for Louisiana families whose lives have been altered by Hurricane Katrina.