A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

Welcome to The Funders Together Board: Tony Richardson

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Joining the Funders Together Board of Directors is yet another passionate and inspiring leader in the philanthropic and homelessness fields: Tony Richardson of the Nord Family Foundation.

Tony is an associate director at the Nord Family Foundation, which funds in Boston, MA; Columbia, SC; Cuyahoga County, OH; Denver, CO; and Penn Yan, NY. At the Foundation, he oversees the its grantmaking in civic affairs and education. He also serves as chairman of the Lorain Academic Distress Commission, a joint local and state committee established to turnaround Lorain City Schools in Lorain, Ohio.

He has served his community in many capacities over the past years. In 2012, he served as the civic and political chair for the Lorain City Schools Levy Committee, which helped the school district pass its first levy for new operating dollars since 1992. The year prior, Tony was elected as a councilman at-large in the City of Lorain, becoming the youngest African American elected to an At-Large seat. During his second term, Tony served as chairman of the Police, Fire, and Legislative Standing Committee, and sponsored legislation to increase hiring goal percentages for racial minorities and women on city projects.

As an active member of Philanthropy Ohio, he serves on the Public Policy Committee and Education Advisory Committee. He is also an advisory board member for The Center for Effective Philanthropy and a member of the ideastream Community Advisory Board. 

Tony holds a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a juris doctorate from The Ohio State University’s Michael E. Moritz College of Law.

“We are so proud to have Tony join the board of Funders Together,” said FTEH Board Chair Janice Elliott, Melville Charitable Trust. “He brings such great passion and commitment to honoring the voices of people most impacted by homelessness and building the capacity of local nonprofit leaders working to end it.”

Funders Together is fortunate to have a board of directors that have valuable experience and knowledge coupled with a passion to better the lives of others and end homelessness, and we are excited to have Tony included in this group. Please join us in welcoming Tony!

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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