Patricia Patrizi works with a broad range of non-profits and philanthropies in the areas of evaluation, strategic planning, and organizational learning. She started and directed for 15 years “The Evaluation Roundtable,” a group of evaluation and program executives from more than 50 foundations dedicated to improving evaluation practices across philanthropy. As part of this she has benchmarked the use of evaluation and evidence based practices among participating foundations. She edited a series of monographs entitled “Practice Matters: The Improving Philanthropy Project,” published on the Foundation Center web site including studies on intermediary organizations, strategic communications, field building and other approaches frequently used by foundations. Patrizi with Michael Quinn Patton edited two volumes of New Directions in Evaluation on the use of case studies in evaluation and authored a second volume on “Strategy Evaluation” published in 2011. Two papers on foundation strategy were published by the Foundation Review: “Beyond the Veneer of Strategic Philanthropy” in 2001 and “Eyes Wide Open, Learning as Strategy,” in 2013. “The Evaluation Conversation: A Path to Impact for Foundation Boards and Executives” has been widely distributed. A major focus of her work is to develop full systems of learning and evaluation for foundations. She served on the advisory panel of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s annual series To Improve Health and Health Care and on the editorial board of The Foundation Review. She was a senior advisor to Public/ Private Ventures prior to its recent closure.

Previously, she was the Director of Evaluation at The Pew Charitable Trusts for eight years. At Pew she was responsible for the design and oversight of over 150 evaluations in the fields of health and human services, education, the environment, religion, culture, and public policy. While in this position, she commissioned and oversaw the evaluation of all major strategies undertaken by the foundation. These strategic assessments formed the basis of program redesign in each area of foundation investment.

Prior to Pew, she conducted health services research as a senior analyst at The Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics of the University of Pennsylvania and was a member of the faculty. In addition, she facilitated management development and learning systems with clients of the WhartonCenter for Applied Research.

Much of her work is informed by her years with the Management and Behavioral Sciences Center at the University of Pennsylvania where she assisted faculty (Chris Argyris, Don Schon, Eric Trist, Fred Emery and others) in their application of systems thinking to organizational learning.

Ms. Patrizi holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania. She serves and has served on numerous advisory boards of non-profits and special initiatives of the foundation sector.