Recent Projects

Philanthropic Advising

• Advised a wealthy donor and a regional nonprofit partner in developing, implementing, and evaluating a place-based initiative in New England. Worked to align and institutionalize innovation to include the perspectives of traditionally marginalized groups directly affected. An iterative process was developed to employ procedures geared toward inclusive and upstream results. Effective implementation requires engagement, deep listening, consensus-building, commitment, and an inclusive approach.

• Served as a strategic advisor to a family foundation and a community foundation on a place-based initiative at the US/Mexico border focused on advancing social equity.

• Developed the grant application, a detailed grant reviewer process, a grant reviewers manual, an organizational assessment framework, and an extensive evidence-informed process. These assets were intentionally structured to align and institutionalize innovation and the perspectives of Latinx, Native/Indigenous, and other communities who have been traditionally marginalized.

• Assessed and reported on community college strategies for Casey’s Center on Economic Opportunity (CEO) and provides an inventory of the Annie E Casey Foundation’s Community Economic Opportunity Division’s postsecondary work. This included the CEO’s impacts on increasing access to postsecondary education, postsecondary credentials, and employment for Casey’s five priority populations: youth of color, youth involved in child welfare, youth involved in the justice system, young parents, and youth living in high-poverty communities.
  • • • Reported on lessons learned and place-based findings.
      • Assessed Casey’s investments relative to emerging developments in the postsecondary ecosystem and outlined promising practices.
      • Developed a final executive summary for the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Foundation for the Mid-South.

Los Angeles County Equity Framework

The Los Angeles County executive invited Robinson to develop an equity framework for the county. LA County is the largest county in the US, with more than 11 million residents. She worked with senior leadership to provide strategic systems coaching and documentation to ground the culture and climate shift needed to implement the county legislators’ anti-racist agenda, strategic plan, and policy agenda.

She developed an extensive series of training modules, a robust manual, and a compendium. Also, she worked with the county leadership in creating a workgroup to engage in intentional culture and climate change throughout the organization. Robinson also developed the framework for racial equity plan development across the county, spanning 38 departments. Robinson collaborated with county leadership to establish the rationale, training methodology, and an implementation framework.