John Hawkins lives in Strafford, Vermont, and has been a teacher, a cabinetmaker, a wooden toy designer and manufacturer, a software engineer and a college administrator. He also spent several years as a local elected official serving as a Selectman and the Town Moderator. John, who has served on the Surdna Foundation Board of Trustees since 1999, is a great-grandson of John E. Andrus, who founded Surdna in 1917.

As a college administrator, John spent 17 years at Dartmouth College where he served as Associate Director of Consulting, Associate Director of Curricular Computing, Director of Distance Education and Director of Strategic Projects for Computing Services. He is also a graduate of Dartmouth College (BA 1969, MA 1995) and wrote his Master’s Thesis on “The Design of Computer Interfaces and the History of Cartography.”

John consults to foundations to help them utilize data visualization and mapping tools to evaluate grant-making and share information.

Contributions

Does Mission- Related Investing Need to Become Mainstream Before it is Considered Acceptable?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by John Hawkins, Tomer Inbar

Do legal constructs based on the prudent caution of an ordinary person in a similar position imply that mission- related investing must become mainstream before becoming acceptable, a chicken-and-egg, Catch- 22? [Author: Tomer Inbar and John Hawkins] Tomer Inbar: You should think about your portfolio as a whole, how this class of assets fits in, and make sure that, overall,… Read More

Mission Investing: Overcoming Resistance and Getting Started

Posted on October 9, 2014 by John Hawkins, Melanie Audette, Tomer Inbar, Tony Wells

How can you engage your board in a thoughtful conversation about the options and added benefits of the mission investing approach? What are some of the best ways to get started with mission investing, and how do family foundations, especially those with limited staff capacity, manage these new strategies to better leverage their philanthropic assets and mission?… Read More