Neill Coleman, Mission Magnified
/Neill Coleman, Mission Magnified
Neill Coleman is a leader in deploying philanthropy, partnerships, and persuasion to drive social change. As the Founder and Principal of Mission Magnified Consulting he has a track-record of creating strategies, building organizations, and inspiring people towards meaningful impact. He believes in, and has demonstrated, the power of cross-sector collaboration. Mission Magnified clients include The Rockefeller Foundation, The Oak Foundation, The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Slum Dwellers International, the Network of European Foundations, GoVoteNYC, and the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
Neill served for five years as the Executive Director of Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies where he developed a strategic direction for an expansion of Trinity's grant-making from $10 million to $57 million a year. From 2012 to 2017 Neill was Vice President for Global Communications at The Rockefeller Foundation. During the first term of the Obama Administration Neill served as Chief External Affairs Officer at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Neill served as President of the Board of the Stonewall Community Foundation. Neill is also a board member - and Chair of the Public Policy Committee - of Philanthropy New York
Philosophy/Approach: With experience in communications and government, I believe strongly in the power of philanthropy engaging with narrative change and public policy in order to achieve impact at scale. I have worked in the public, private and philanthropic sectors and can help facilitate the types of partnerships and collaborations between those sectors that enables all of them to do their work better.
As the leader of a faith-based philanthropy for five years I have a fluency in the language and approaches of faith funders and believe in the opportunity and need for greater understanding and partnership between faith-based and secular funders and grantees.
Types of clients: Private foundations, Corporations, Community foundations, Individual donors
Issues/Focus: Civic, Environment, Global, Health, Social
Specialization: Areas of expertise include:
Creating organizations and philanthropic strategies
Building teams
Cross-sector collaboration
Public policy
Faith-based philanthropy
Funding collaboratives
Influence and communications
I have subject matter experience in housing, homelessness, community development, environment, health, racial justice and leadership.
"Neill’s 2018 influential study ‘Changing the Story: A Reflection on Communications Hubs supported by Oak Foundation’ examined the purpose, nature and learnings derived from multi-year efforts to support the development of hubs designed to provide coordinated communications messaging, guidance, and capacity to multiple organizations within the human rights and migration sectors. Affirming the critical importance of strategic communications and outreach to broader public audiences to secure progressive social change, the comparative study analysed successes and challenges and surfaced key elements for success. Neill’s deep communications field experience, ability to condense complexity and skills in formulating clear, practice-based, recommendations were key in making the report a significant contribution to Oak’s and other peer foundation programming. Feedback from field partners, particularly related to the need to avoid prescription and build capacity, was welcoming and positive."
—Tim Parritt, Programme Officer, International Human Rights, Oak Foundation
Neill Coleman, Mission Magnified
