Boston Foundation names Allison F. Bauer Senior Program Officer for Health and Human Services

February 21, 2007

Boston – The Boston Foundation has named Allison F. Bauer to the position of Senior Program Officer for Health and Human Services. She will be responsible for developing and managing grantmaking, and contributing to the Foundation’s work in public policy initiatives in this field. Health and Human Services is a broad sector that includes medical and mental health care, public health, as well as services to people with disabilities and substance abuse issues. Programs that address homelessness, domestic violence and child welfare, as well as services for elderly residents, also are included within this category.

Bauer comes to the Boston Foundation from the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where she served as Staff Director and Chief Counsel for State Rep. Ruth Balser, staffing the Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. She is a former Director of Professional issues and Member Services for the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, which included a role as liaison to the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.

Earlier, Bauer served as Legislative and Policy Analyst and State Policy Manager for GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., that works to achieve equal education access for all students regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender identity and expression. Prior to that, Bauer served as Policy Director for the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, where she directed policy and legislative activities designed to support the effort to develop an HIV vaccine. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Simmons College School of Social Work. Bauer was an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, in Alexandria, VA, where her work focused on Social Work and the Law.

Bauer earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the University of Rochester, a JD degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University. She is a member of the National Board of Directors of the Family Pride Coalition.

“The Health and Human Services sector touches the lives of people across Greater Boston in direct and powerful ways, and I am delighted to have someone with the depth of experience and skill that Allison has demonstrated overseeing our work in this area,” said Terry Lane, Vice president for Program at the Boston Foundation. “This puts her on the front lines, bringing the resources of the Foundation into alignment with the needs of residents in the region—and I expect Allison will quickly become a leader in the truest sense, within the Foundation and across the Health and Human Services community.”

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The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the nation, with assets of over $830 million.  In 2006, the Foundation and its donors made more than $70 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of $71 million.  The Foundation is made up of some 850 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes.  The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, provider of information, convener, and sponsor of special initiatives designed to address the community’s and region’s most pressing challenges.  For more information about the Boston Foundation, visit www.tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.