Giving Gap Announces Shawn Dove as New Board Chair; Co-Founder Christina Lewis Moves to Honorary Role

Effective July 1, 2024, Giving Gap’s board of directors appointed Shawn Dove as their new chair.

Mr. Dove took the helm from Christina Lewis, co-founder of Giving Gap and founding board chair.

During Ms. Lewis’s tenure, Giving Gap grew from a crowd-sourced spreadsheet to a 1400+ member online directory. It received funding from Ford Foundation, Microsoft, Gates Foundation, and many others. It also established flourishing partnerships with premiere charitable infrastructure organizations such as Charity Navigator, BackBlack, and Charityvest.

“My heart is full of gratitude as I leave the board of Giving Gap, for the thousands of individuals who have come together around our purpose to make it easier for people to find Black-Founded nonprofits they wish to support,” said Ms. Lewis. “I feel privileged to have presided over this organization in its first four years, and am highly confident that it will evolve and grow to ever greater impact going forward. I am grateful to CEO Heather Infantry and to incoming Board Chair Shawn Dove for the pleasure of working with them.”

In 2020, Ms. Lewis conceptualized the idea of a database of Black-Founded nonprofits in the summer of 2020. Alongside two co-founders, David Setiadi and Stephanie Ellis-Smith, as well as a host of pro bono support, they launched Giving Gap in less than three months.

Ms. Lewis recently launched a new venture, Beatrice Advisors , an independent, woman and minority-owned multi-family investment firm that provides high-quality services to individuals and families who consider themselves unadvised or under-advised.

In 2013, she started a tech pipeline organization called All Star Code, for which she won a Champion of Change award from the Obama White House.

Ms. Lewis will assume the title of Honorary Board Member.

Shawn Dove has four decades of innovative leadership intersecting the fields of philanthropy, racial justice, youth development, community-building and media literacy. He currently serves as Managing Partner for New Profit, a venture philanthropy firm that supports social entrepreneurs who are creating innovative solutions for education, health, economic mobility, and more. His work at New Profit centers around curating a multiracial, intergenerational, cross-sector (MIC) coalitions to increase access to opportunities for all. Before joining New Profit, Dove was the founder of the Campaign for Black Male Achievement which was the largest philanthropic strategy to improve the life outcomes of Black men and boys. Mr. Dove had this to say about his new appointment as board chair: “Giving Gap’s mission is more critical today than when we launched four years ago in the midst of a global pandemic and what many were calling a ‘racial reckoning’ in our nation. I’m honored and excited to serve as Board Chair in this next phase of our vital work of connecting philanthropists to Black-founded organizations making a difference in communities across the nation.”

This is an exciting time for Giving Gap as we enter into our fourth year in September and continue to establish Giving Gap as a leading voice in Black philanthropy and donor mobilization.

Leading the charge behind our mission of connecting people to causes is Heather Infantry. For the past two years, Ms. Infantry has led the organization and has galvanized support from national funders, partners, and everyday donors. In February of this year, Giving Gap published the State of Black Nonprofits Report, which has been widely shared and referenced in important conversations about Black philanthropy. “I am beyond excited to work closely with Shawn in this capacity and tap into his insights as a social impact innovator,” Ms Infantry said. “Together, we will continue to sound the alarm on the funding gap while affirming the astounding contributions of Black nonprofit leaders.”

Giving Gap helps to close the gap in charitable giving for Black-founded nonprofits by hosting the largest online directory of organizations from across the US; sharing aggregated data on the unique strengths and needs of nonprofit leaders; and organizing campaigns and events to mobilize giving. Since its founding in 2020, Giving Gap has cataloged over 1,400 nonprofits and moved over $2M in funding. As Black-founded organizations in the US continue to see just a small percentage of the more than $450B donated annually, we are all left with much work to do. Giving Gap is committed to building the movement for the equitable funding of the Black nonprofit sector.  To learn more visit givinggap.org.

About Giving Gap

Giving Gap is dedicated to ensuring sustained commitments to and elevating the visibility of local Black-led and Black-founded nonprofits serving Black communities. To date, over 1,400 organizations are part of its wide network across an array of sectors from Arts & Culture, Careers, Criminal Justice, Environment, Technology and more.

For additional details visit givinggap.org , Instagram and LinkedIn .