Your thought partner for impact.

Professional Consulting

Edward R. Gray, Ph.D.

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I love helping nonprofits learn to become learning organizations and operate under a paradigm of meaningful impact. That is, to (1) focus on three or five top goals; (2) identify and engage those to whom these goals are most meaningful; (3) measure their impact and describe it in compelling terms; (4) sustain this impact with imagination and efficiency; and (5) engage board members and other key volunteers with meaningful work.

I am the founder and principal at GRAYMatter Solutions, a BoardSource Certified Governance Trainer, and a faculty member at the School of Organizational Leadership, University of the Rockies. Before this, I was senior program officer at the Gill Foundation responsible for a $1million grant portfolio in human services, arts, education, and public broadcasting in Colorado.

Before moving to Colorado, I was the founding president of The Atlanta Gay & Lesbian Community Foundation. In this role, I convened executive directors, started a former board chairs forum, advised philanthropists on high-impact giving, and provided capacity-building expertise to local organizations. As Executive Director of YouthPride, a youth organization, from 2002-2007, I grew the organization to the largest LGBTG organization in Georgia, increasing staff from one to five, doubling the budget, instituting outcomes-based performance management, and securing new funding.  I was also Associate Director of the American Academy Religion, a national membership organization and learned society. There I designed and launched new programs in teaching & learning, program evaluation, employment services, and workforce studies. I directed the first major census of departments in North American and completely revamped and edited the newspaper of record for the field.

I have a doctorate from Emory University in Ethics & Society. I have taught courses on religions and politics, religions and media, religions and gender, and comparative courses.

I co-edited Gay Religion, a collection concentrating on the religious practices of LGLBT individuals. I have published articles on gay religious life, on catastrophe as a transcendent event, and op-ed pieces in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and Newsday.

And I love to travel.