About the Principal

Cynthia M. Gibson, Ph.D.

Principal

Cynthesis Consulting

Cynthia Gibson has more than 25 years of experience in the nonprofit sector as a consultant, senior staff person, and advisor for hundreds of national nonprofits and philanthropic institutions. As principal of Cynthesis Consulting,™, she provides a wide range of services—including strategic planning and positioning, program development, evaluation, marketing/communications, and public policy research and analysis—for nonprofits and foundations across the country. (See Clients)

In 2007 for the Case Foundation, Cynthia authored Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement and helped to develop a new approach to grantmaking reflecting the concepts in this paper—including the importance of public participation in philanthropy—that was highlighted in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Previously, she served as a program officer at Carnegie Corporation of New York in the area of Strengthening U.S. Democracy, developing and overseeing two subprograms in Strengthening the Nonprofit and Philanthropic Sector and Youth Civic Engagement. As program officer, in 2003, Gibson was named one of the Nonprofit Times' "Top 50 Power and Influence" in the nonprofit sector and authored two publications—From Inspiration to Participation: Strategies for Youth Civic Engagement and The Civic Mission of Schools (co-authored with Peter Levine)—that have since become standards for the field, the basis of a national advocacy campaign, and catalysts for federal legislation for civic education.

Prior to coming to Carnegie, Gibson served as a consultant for numerous organizations, among them, the Rockefeller Foundation, Open Society Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Planned Parenthood of New York City, Citizens Committee for Children, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Center for Policy Alternatives, and many others for which she conducted evaluations, strategic plans, research, and marketing/communications efforts.

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 (formerly The Youth Project). 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 raised millions of dollars for the organization.

In addition to speaking and publishing widely on nonprofit strategy, citizenship, education, philanthropy and social policy, Gibson teaches at the New School University’s Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy; is a senior fellow at Tufts University; and has served on numerous advisory committees, selection panels and boards, including VolunteerMatch.org, Moblize.org, Nonprofit Quarterly, Public Allies, Public Conversations Project, Idealist.org, and Whatgoesaround.org. Gibson has a B.A. in psychology from Pennsylvania State University (Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude); an M.S.W. from Catholic University of America; and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Her dissertation focused on nonprofit advocacy, membership, and representation (“In Whose Interest: Do National Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations Represent the Under-Represented?”).