By Maria Saporta
Barbara Mosacchio, president and CEO of the Atlanta Women’s Foundation since 2008, is returning to her hometown of Chicago.
Saying she was leaving with “mixed emotions,” Mosacchio has accepted a position to become president and CEO of Chicago Youth Centers — a 50-year-old social services organization serving children — beginning in early July.
“While this was a truly tough decision to make, as I have loved my time at the Atlanta Women’s Foundation and I am so proud of all we have accomplished, I do feel like the timing is right,” Mosacchio said in an email responding to an inquiry of whether she was leaving.
Mosacchio said the timing was right because the organization has achieved many of the goals set by its board in its strategic plan. Those goals revolved around fundraising, grant making and providing thought leadership for the community on issues of generational poverty for women and girls.
“Our annual fund has grown by 30 percent during the toughest economy yet,” Mosacchio said, adding that the net income for the organization’s top fundraiser — Numbers Too Big to Ignore — “has increased by 400 percent.”
The Atlanta Women’s Foundation also has just completed a significant research project to help guide how it allocates grants in the future.
Mosacchio said that the foundation’s incoming and outgoing board chairs — Danita Knight and Cindy Brazell — will be heading up a “transition committee.” In the meantime, Deborah Ryan, the foundation’s vice president of development, will serve as interim director.
“The Atlanta Women’s Foundation is an exceptional organization that has historically done great things — a truly bold and visionary leader,” Mosacchio said. “I am 100 percent confident that this will continue.”
Before joining the foundation in 2008, Mosacchio was CEO of the YWCA of Metropolitan Dallas, a position she had held since November, 2001. She also has had an extensive career in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. She served as senior manager of research and communications at the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and she held senior positions at MMS Incentives and Chicago-based Second Harvest National Food Bank Network. She also has been president and owner of Veritas Research and Consulting.
The Atlanta Women’s Foundation began in 1986 as the Atlanta Women’s Fund under the umbrella of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. It became a stand-alone organization in 1998. At its 20-year mark, the organization had given away more than $10 million in grants to non-profit organizations. In recent years, it has been able to make grants totaling $1 million annually.
