Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

RICH Board Chair

Gayle L. Gifford, ACFRE, is President of Cause & Effect Inc, a consulting firm that helps nonprofit and public sector organizations create strategic change for a more just and peaceful world. Gayle brings to RICH over 30 years of experience in her work with organizations – in fundraising, board development, strategic planning, management consulting and facilitation. Gayle is one of fewer than 100 individuals with the advanced fundraising credential, ACFRE. She holds a M.S. in management from Antioch University New England and is a frequent trainer and writer on nonprofit management and fundraising. She is author of two books: How Are We Doing? A 1-Hour guide to evaluating the performance of your nonprofit board and Meaningful Participation, an activist's guide to collaborative policy-making and is co-author of the monograph: Bringing a Development Director on Board. She is a regular columnist at Contributions magazine and also teaches as an adjunct in the Masters in Communications Management at Simmons College and in the Master's in Public Humanities at Brown University. Gayle has been on the Council board for two terms and is completing her final year as board chair. Gayle also serves on the advisory council of Latino Dollars for Scholars. She lives in Providence with her husband Jonathan Howard and is mother of three children, Emma, Alexander and Samuel Howard.