The Capacity to Do Good: After a Year, OCF President CEO Lisa Mensah Looks Forward

In September 2022, Lisa Mensah joined Oregon Community Foundation as the organization’s third president and CEO.

It was a key time for OCF: At the same time as it celebrated its 50th anniversary, the foundation launched work on its next strategic plan.

Mensah was born and raised in Oregon, the daughter of an immigrant from Ghana and a former Iowa farm girl. She holds a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

She began her career in commercial banking at Citibank then joined the Ford Foundation, where she was responsible for the country’s largest philanthropic grant and loan portfolio of investments in rural America. In the Obama administration, she served as Under Secretary for Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she managed a $215 billion loan portfolio. Most recently, she led the Opportunity Finance Network, a national network of community development financial institutions.

Read the full East Oregonian article here.