Chris Addy

Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Environmentalist, Explorer, Idea generator, Social entrepreneur, World traveler

Chris is a partner in Bridgespan's Boston office and the Co-Head of Bridgespan’s Philanthropy practice. Chris advises groups with significant capital, especially nigh net worth individuals/couples, that seek to make social change. He typically helps them with philanthropy and has substantial experience helping clients think through the potential of impact investing and advocacy to get their desired results. His focus is on helping clients to identify, design, and execute on big bets, large philanthropic initiatives for social change. This includes helping clients get clear on their values and beliefs, identifying areas of interest and desired results, developing strategies, sourcing grantees, conducting due diligence, and structuring grants. Subject matter experience includes education from early childhood to college completion, youth development, public health/healthcare, infectious diseases, veterans, and the environment. He has also worked on strategic planning and capacity building for operating nonprofits in these same fields and often in conjunction with funders. Chris has significant experience speaking on organizational effectiveness and performance measurement (an area of focus across his work). Chris has been quoted as an expert in The New York Times, Bloomberg, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has co-authored "Making Big Bets for Social Change" in the Stanford Social Innovation Review and authored "Wall Street Philanthropy: The 6 Do's And Don'ts From The Trading Floor" for Forbes, and "Philanthropic Opportunities for Climate Adaptation" for SSIR. Chris has served on multiple boards. He is currently on the Fundraising Board of the One Acre Fund, a nonprofit that assists more than 400,000 smallholder-farming families in Sub-Sharan Africa to dramatically improve their crop yields and break cycles of poverty. Prior to joining Bridgespan, Chris worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company in Chicago in a wide array of industries, including agribusiness and retail. Before graduate school, he spent several years in Southern California as a middle school environmental science and math teacher, a youth outdoor adventure trip leader, and briefly worked in international development in Sri Lanka. Chris earned his BS in Biology, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, where he was a F. C. Austin Scholar. Chris is the proud father of two daughters and an avid outdoorsman and traveler (especially to places where his Spanish language skills are useful).

Helping capital earmarked for social and environmental change flow to the things that will generate the greatest returns to society - public or (more typically) private, in the US and around the world with amazing groups like The Audacious Project Coaching and mentoring. Traveling and having adventures wherever I am. My amazing wife and two wonderful daughters.

80% of major donors say social change is a priority for them, but only 20% actually give big grants to social change organizations (vs. alma maters, etc.). Let's work together to overcome some critical deal-making and mindset barriers to better match people's aspirations with flows of capital for impact whether it is through philanthropy or impact investing

Adventure travel, Climate and environment, Early childhood, Impact investing, Measuring social impact, Philanthropy, Public Health, Social change