Jeffrey C. Walker
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: CCMP Capital
FUNDING AREAS: System Entrepreneurship, Education, Health & Human Services, Policy, Arts
OVERVIEW: Jeffrey Walker and family conduct their philanthropy through the Walker Family Foundation. According to available tax filings, the foundation awarded just under $3.1 million in grants in 2017. Walker is active in civic life and sits on a number of boards, including New Profit and Berklee College of Music. He also serves as a vice chair of the United Nations Envoy’s Office for Health Finance and Malaria. Walker is passionate about system entrepreneurship, a collaborative model that brings together data, research, innovation and policy to the social change space.
BACKGROUND: Jeffrey C. Walker graduated with a B.S. from University of Virginia and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Walker cofounded and served as CEO of CCMP Capital, the $12 billion successor to JPMorgan Partners, which he joined in the 1980s.
ISSUES:
EDUCATION & SYSTEM ENTREPRENEURSHIP: In addition to a long career in finance, Jeffrey Walker also served for 10 years as president of the undergraduate business school at UVA, and also executive-in-residence at Harvard Business School, where he focused on social enterprises and collaboration. Walker is especially interested in the systems entrepreneur, a new kind of change agent who harnesses data, research, innovation and policy change through a collaborative model.
The Walker family have supported Harvard Business School and UVA. Other grantees have included University of Wisconsin Foundation, University of Miami, UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television, Northfield Mount Hermon School (the couple are NMH parents), MIT Media Lab, iMentor, and Berklee, where Walker sits on the board.
He has also supported Draper Richard Kaplan Foundation, a leadership development learning organization cochaired by former fellow Harvard professor and fellow financier Richard Kaplan. Other grantees have included Leading Change Network, an outfit "open to leaders of civic associations, community groups and social movements who want to learn how to organize communities that can mobilize power to make change," and New Profit, a nonprofit venture philanthropy fund that invests in social entrepreneurs, where Walker sits on the board.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: Walker serves as a vice chairman of United Nations Envoy’s Office for Health Finance and Malaria, as well as on the board of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Grantees in this area have included Robin Hood Foundation, LIFT, and Single Stop, a "national nonprofit helping individuals and families navigate the barriers to existing resources." Walker has been meditating for some four decades and has supported groups like Foundation for A Mindful Society and David Lynch Foundation. He has also supported efforts to bring mindfulness to public schools.
POLICY & GLOBAL: Walker also has an eye towards global issues, unsurprising given his leadership role with the U.N. He was once chairman of Millennium Promise, whose mission is to "provide the operational platform and resource mobilization for the Millennium Villages Project, which empowers communities to lift themselves out of extreme poverty." The Walkers support groups like MDG Health Alliance, which has focused on issues like preventing mother-child transmission of AIDS. Other grantees have included Brookings Institution, Global Health Corps, and Last Mile Health.
ARTS: The Walkers also have an interest in arts and culture in their philanthropy, and Walker is an avid musician. Walker has backed a collaboration called GRAMMY's Music Education Coalition in an attempt to bring music back to kids across America. Besides Berklee, grantees have also included Morgan Library and Lincoln Center Film Society.
LOOKING FORWARD: Expect the Walker family's steady and active philanthropy to continue. As Walker puts it, "Since 2007, I’ve increased the time I spend on non-profit enterprises from 20 percent of my time to 90 percent. I find working with boards, social enterprises, non-profit leaders and fellow donors to be hugely rewarding and, when there is a fit, very similar in feeling to when I played music with a great ensemble—flowing."
CONTACT:
The Walker Family Foundation does not provide a clear avenue for getting in touch with the couple but below is contact information
The Walker Family Foundation
662 Island Drive
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Telephone: (212) 440-0800
