Foundation CEO Discusses Dealing With Economic Downturn
March 17, 2009
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will increase payout rates in 2009, although overall grant dollars will probably decline slightly, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, chief executive of the foundation, says in an interview with The McKinsey Quarterly, the journal of the management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
Dr. Lavizzo-Mourey said that well before the economic downturn, the $8-billion, health-focused philanthropy had begun sharpening its mission, paring it strategic objectives to seven areas, and cutting the number of grantees by more than half. In the interview, she outlined the progress on one of its major grant-making programs, a $500-million effort to combat child obesity.
