How TAG’s New Executive Director Aims to Meet the Sector’s “Practical and Aspirational” Tech Needs
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Jean westrick, executive director, technology Association of Grantmakers. Photo credit: Tanja Pleis
Jean Westrick has traded her former job with a $4 billion funder to take the helm at Technology Association of Grantmakers, which reported net assets of just $1.1 million in 2022. She also left a team of more than 100 at the Chicago Community Trust to become one of just four full-time staff in her new position.
But while TAG may be smaller than her former employer, it’s also fairly easy to see why Westrick would want the job. When it comes to impact, TAG is punching way above its weight class.
Inside Philanthropy readers may remember TAG from our coverage of its annual State of Philanthropy Tech report, its collaborative work on the #FixtheForm movement, or its outspoken encouragement of funders to step up their support of nonprofits’ IT needs. In addition to that work, TAG has leveraged the knowledge of its members to conduct more than 200 learning sessions and author more than 20 publications on topics including data and tech infrastructure for impact, funding nonprofit tech, and IT strategy in the past six years alone.
TAG has also grown substantially. At 18 years old, it originally launched as a sponsored affinity group within the Council on Foundations in 2006. Westrick will be the organization’s third leader, and its second full-time executive director, replacing outgoing ED Chantal Forster. TAG also added three other staff, and the organization now boasts nearly 3,000 members in 365 organizations. And while the wider world of tech has been criticized for its lack of diversity, in 2022, TAG launched Equity Essentials for Philanthropy Tech, a six-month DEI training for tech professionals in philanthropy. An updated version of the program is planned for 2024.
All of which is to say that Technology Association of Grantmakers and its new leader are well-positioned to keep the streak going.
Optimism that philanthropy can make a difference
Forster’s legacy at TAG is fairly daunting, but Westrick’s experience seems to put her on strong footing to blaze some trails of her own in her new job. Like many people in nonprofit IT, Westrick is a self-described “accidental techie,” who started at Chicago Community Trust nearly a decade ago as an independent consultant, supporting events surrounding the trust’s 100th anniversary and the redesign of its website. By the time she left, Westrick was the trust’s director of IT strategy and communications and had helped lead the organization through a $6 million upgrade of its entire tech stack.
Her former employer praised TAG’s choice. “Throughout her tenure, Jean demonstrated her commitment to drive impact and foster collaboration at the Chicago Community Trust,” said Chicago Community Trust President and CEO Andrea Sáenz, saying that Westrict “brought creativity and passion to every project she led.”
For her part, Forster called Westrick “a renowned community builder and strategist in philanthropy tech” whose “self-awareness, humility and dedication to advancing equity uniquely qualify her to lead TAG in a dynamic environment, where emerging technologies like AI are reshaping the landscape of civil society.”
In a recent conversation, Westrick told me that the heart of what motivates her is an optimism that philanthropy “can actually make a difference and make a change in the future.” Like all of us, she is aware that technology has become so ubiquitous that nonprofits must have access to up-to-date, working tech to be able to achieve their missions.
She also doesn’t see the relative lack of resources that TAG has, particularly compared to her former organization, as a drawback. Instead, she said she welcomes the chance to wear many hats and praised the passion and involvement of TAG’s membership. “This is an organization that is really driven by its volunteers,” she said. “The members provide the content, they inform the sorts of things that TAG focuses on, and so I don't see (the organization’s small team and budget) as limiting factors.”
When it comes to the legacy she hopes to have at TAG, Westrick mentioned the kinds of things one would expect of someone who would be a good fit at this organization, including the need to continue “walking the walk” around DEI and continuing to nudge funders to step up their support of nonprofit IT.
But she also offered a view of organizational growth that I found refreshing. During her interviews for the job, she said, she told her interviewers that she wasn’t interested in growth for growth’s sake. Instead, she said, “I really wanted to think about what is our mission, and what is our core responsibility to philanthropy.”
“One of the things that I love about TAG,” and the reason she chose this and not another opportunity, is that “we serve people who have real challenges today. They have to keep the lights on in their organization, they have to protect and safeguard data, and they have to also enable technology to do really innovative things, so keeping both the practical and the aspirational in sight at the same time is key,” particularly given the disruptive changes that technology is making, and will continue to make, to the way nonprofits operate in the world.
As a philanthropy reporter whose beats include nonprofit tech, I feel almost an obligation to close this article by driving home tech’s huge impact on the philanthropshere. But anyone reading it is going to be as aware of these issues as I am.
Instead, it feels far more important to hold up the valuable role that TAG plays in this ecosystem. While it exists primarily to serve funders, TAG manages to hold up a much-needed, if gently critical, eye to look at what foundations and donors are doing right and the areas where they need to do better. If I were to add my own holiday wish list for Westrick’s legacy, it would be that TAG continues and expands this positive influence on its membership and beyond.
