Dr. Albert Ruesga joined the Greater New Orleans Foundation in mid-January 2009.  He served for seven years as Vice President for Programs and Communications at the Meyer Foundation in Washington, DC. The Meyer Foundation is one of the oldest and largest foundations in Greater Washington and has earned a national reputation for its work in communications and capacity building.

Dr. Ruesga was the founding director of New Ventures in Philanthropy, a national initiative that has helped generate more than $500 million in new philanthropic resources against an investment of $14 million. Prior to serving at New Ventures, he was the Donor Resources Manager at the Boston Foundation. His duties there included grantmaking as well as providing a wide range of philanthropic services to the Foundation’s donors and donor prospects.

His knowledge of the nonprofit community comes from many years of nonprofit management and fundraising consulting.

Dr. Ruesga serves on the board of Hispanics in Philanthropy, a transnational network of grantmakers committed to strengthening Latino communities across the Americas. He served as its chair from 2005 to 2008. He recently joined the board of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. He’s a member of the steering committee for the Southern Social Justice Working Group, the Aspen Philanthropy Group, and the Ford Foundation Working Group for Peace and Social Justice Philanthropy. He also serves as an advisor to the Caring to Change project.

Dr. Ruesga earned his Ph.D. at MIT and taught ethics and aesthetics at Gettysburg College before entering the world of philanthropy. He also served as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. An accomplished writer, his articles have appeared in Social Theory and Practice, The Journal of Popular Culture, and other publications. He was for many years a contributing writer to The Boston Book Review, and was the founding editor of the White Courtesy Telephone, a popular blog about nonprofits and philanthropy.