Women's Foundation of Boston 2020 Annual Report

IRFAN ALIBHAI Irfan Alibhai currently serves as the President of The Burkehaven Family Foundation. He has spent most of his career in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector. Prior roles have included director of finance and operations at the GreenLight Fund, and director of planning and analysis at Teach for America. His early career included program development at Harvard Medical School, teaching chemistry and engineering at Brookline High School, and as a research scientist at Pfizer. Irfan enjoys reading, learning about new and impactful nonprofits, and doing home projects with his two young children. He holds an MEd from Harvard University and an MBA from Queen’s University. How did you become connected to the Women’s Foundation of Boston? I first heard about WFBoston through the GreenLight Fund. We did some research and were very impressed by WFBoston’s data-driven and targeted approach to funding organizations and opportunities that help lift up women and girls. What stands out about the Women’s Foundation of Boston from your other grantees? WFBoston is one of only a couple of non direct-service organizations that we fund. We love that we can rely on WFBoston to put our support to the best use based on their expertise and model. What inspired you to donate to this cause? After hearing Christina Gordon speak about the lack of funding specifically targeted toward women and girls, we were motivated to support this issue. Beyond that, the fact that WFBoston does the due diligence and finds the best organizations to support was a huge added benefit. As a foundation we can’t be experts in all the fields we hope to impact so we’re happy to partner with WFBoston which clearly has the knowledge and expertise to give us the largest societal return on our investment. What programs are you proudest of supporting? We’re proudest of being able to give unrestricted non-program specific funding that can be used to directly fund programs or help build the infrastructure that supports them. We select the organizations to support based on their past impact and their current leadership and then trust them with unrestricted funding to do what is best for the organization and the community it serves. How has investing in women impacted you? There is always some satisfaction in helping right structural inequities and investing in women is no different. Doing it specifically through WFBoston is a huge engagement and learning opportunity for me and a way to ensure that the decisions on how and where to direct support are being made by leaders in the field. This gives me a lot of peace of mind. Investing in the Power of Women & Girls 23