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Meeting Points: Places of Connection, Transition, and Change

Annual Report 2024-2025
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Meeting Points: Places of Connection, Transition, and Change

A Message From Our Executive Director

Front cover of the 2024-2025 Annual Report

Meeting points — places and times where people come together — are inherently places of connection. Sometimes they are places of continuity and growth, and sometimes of transition and redirection. At the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University, we have experienced these intersections in powerful and personal ways this year — as an organization and as part of a sector and a society undergoing profound change.

As part of GVSU, we experience daily the power of higher education to serve as an anchor in uncertain times. These institutions are places of stability and reflection, as well as incubation — where new ideas are tested, partnerships are formed, and the future begins to take shape. Philanthropy, too, is a vehicle for this connection, for innovation and trust, for risk-taking and renewal. It allows us to imagine what is possible and to build it together — to move forward from our meeting places to create something new and necessary.

In this spirit of engagement, we were honored this year to welcome two nationally recognized leaders in philanthropy — Dr. Elizabeth Dale and Julia Coffman — to our team. Their expertise and vision are already shaping our work in new and exciting ways. At the same time, we also bid a heartfelt farewell to Pat Robinson, who retired this summer after 28 years of extraordinary service with the Johnson Center.

“We have deepened our commitment to supporting the sector with timely and relevant knowledge — meeting a moment that calls for informed action and mutual support.”

Our research and relationship-building this year have also explored philanthropy’s many intersections and points of innovation. We have examined the intersection of community and family philanthropy in Latin America, brought new light to the growing influence of donor advised funds (DAFs), and developed research and resources to support organizations adopting more community-centric approaches in their work. These efforts reflect our belief that philanthropy is not static — it is evolving, and we are committed to understanding and informing that evolution.

Further, we have also deepened our commitment to supporting the sector with timely and relevant knowledge, meeting a moment that calls for informed action and mutual support. From participating in national conversations to launching new learning programs, we have sought to meet practitioners where they are. We are thinking anew about how we activate our research, how we make it more accessible, more actionable, and more responsive to the challenges philanthropy’s leaders face today.

These meeting points — between past and future, between challenge and opportunity — are where our work lives. They are where we listen, learn, and lead alongside our partners in the field. Thank you for being part of this journey.

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Headshot: Lesley Slavitt

Lesley D. Slavitt, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy
at Grand Valley State University