Robert Kissane

Robert Kissane is chairman of CCS Fundraising, a leading fundraising consulting and management firm specializing in philanthropic development for nonprofit organizations worldwide.

Bob has more than 35 years of experience directing major capital and endowment campaigns for public and private universities, hospitals and academic medical centers, museums and performing arts institutions, research and public policy institutes, as well as national and international humanitarian and environmental organizations.

Bob’s strategic guidance has helped mobilize more than $20 billion in philanthropic support for ambitious projects to eradicate polio; fight cancer, diabetes, AIDS and other diseases; provide nutrition, food security, housing, shelter, and economic opportunities to children and underserved communities; promote science, education, and the arts; advance civil society; and conserve wildlife and their natural habitats.

He has been instrumental in the design of several groundbreaking philanthropic initiatives. He advised on the creation of the Giving Pledge, the founding of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the launch of the Rotary Foundation’s PolioPlus campaign, and the creation of the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Bob has led initiatives for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Hall, the City University of New York, Habitat for Humanity International, Harlem Children’s Zone, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Opera, Mount Sinai Health System, the New York Philharmonic, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, UNICEF, Weill Cornell Medicine, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

In addition, Bob has written and presented extensively about strategic development planning, transformational leadership giving, board development, governance and diversity, financing and co-investment strategies, grantee sustainability, public-private partnerships, and grassroots mobilization to help maximize philanthropic impact.

Bob is co-chair of the Board of Directors at Human Rights Watch, chair of the Board at Poets House, and the founding chair at the City University of New York School of Professional Studies Foundation. He serves on the executive committee of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and is a member of the Global Philanthropy Forum and the formative working group for the Generosity Commission.