Lisa Goldberg
May 1, 1952 to January 22, 2007

Lisa Goldberg, president of the Charles H. Revson Foundation from 2003 until her death in 2007, joined the Foundation as a program officer in 1982, was named vice president in 1984, and executive vice president in 1994.

Lisa was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. She graduated with honors from Radcliffe College and Harvard Law School. Before coming to the Revson Foundation, she served as a senior staff member and legal counsel to the President's Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties, established by President Jimmy Carter; as consultant to Judges Harold Leventhal and David Bazelon, of the Federal Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia; and as director of a Boston family court program funded by the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA).

In Memoriam: January 22, 2007

The Board of Directors and staff of the Charles H. Revson Foundation mourn the heartbreaking loss of the Foundation’s brilliant and devoted president. Lisa’s exceptional leadership and enlightened grant making were owed to her boundless intellectual curiosity, her voracious reading, her effortless mastery of diverse realms of knowledge, her technical prowess, her prescient recognition of groundbreaking ideas, her delight in helping young people develop as leaders, her ardent commitment to women, her dedication to Jewish history and culture, and her belief in the power of law to redress injustice.

Lisa was remarkable in her gift for friendship, her capacity to find humor in adversity, her ability to celebrate accomplishment and her unfaltering sustenance in times of sorrow, her adept problem solving, her immutable loyalty, her panache, her grace and profound compassion, her unique combination of tenderness and rigor, her ready laughter, and her attentive mentoring of every member of the Revson staff. Surpassing all was her love for her family—John, Katie, Jed and Danielle, Julia, Ava, and Natalie, Donna and Jeff and their children, and Philip.

Incapable of small-mindedness, modest about her stunning talents, Lisa released the generosity in every person fortunate enough to know her. She left the world immeasurably better. May her memory continue to bless us.

Remembering Lisa
           
by
           
Eli N. Evans

This speech was delivered at the memorial tribute “Sharing the Life of Lisa Ellen Goldberg” on Sunday, February 25, 2007, at New York University.  Eli N. Evans is President Emeritus of the Charles H. Revson Foundation.

I first met Lisa when Matina Horner, the president of Radcliffe, urged me to interview an extraordinary thirty-year-old former student whose husband, John Sexton, was then a new professor at NYU Law School. 

Thus began a protégé-mentor relationship in which the protégé turned into a friend, a colleague, a partner and then a successor.  The Revson Foundation became her career, and we were all—staff, board, and grantees—blessed by her presence, her wisdom, her grace, her canny insights and irreverent humor, and, not least, the prodigious, really unbelievable talents she brought to bear on our work.

Lisa changed the culture of the Foundation in every way—intellectually, and in the quality of our work and our everyday life.   We became a different, better place because of her.  She drew in the very best minds for meetings and conversations and folded her wide-ranging friendships into our intellectual resource bank.   She was a constant learner, able to digest ten books on a subject--like new technologies or women in politics or the implications of tax and welfare policy on the inner cities--and synthesize the best thinking from twenty interviews and lay out options in the clearest, most direct prose.At the same time, she was warm and welcoming to young talent, making a profound impression on artists and writers, filmmakers and other unseasoned grantseekers who were used to rejection everywhere they turned.  She guided and nurtured the staff, prizing the talents and possibilities of everyone she worked with.  She believed so ardently in building a foundation community that would work together that she was a founding force and continuing spirit in developing institutional frameworks, like the Jewish Funders Network, now with 1,000 members, to facilitate learning from one another and cooperative friendships. 

For someone so private--who rarely made speeches, who didn’t allow herself to be honored or seek recognition--she gained enormous prominence in the field by virtue of her legendary, encyclopedic knowledge and fiercely honest advice. Lisa, with her tender toughness, was a truth teller.

Lisa's mark is on every achievement of the Revson Foundation, and its reputation as a creative funder, both in the US and in Israel. Lisa sought out, helped create, and championed projects to realize the ideal of an equitable, more just and democratic society—through an accountable government monitored with private funds; an informed public with access to unbiased information on candidates; media programs that inspire young people to register and vote; fellowships to bring women and minorities into public life; and in Israel, top-flight research on Israeli problems and solutions, and television programs designed for both Israeli preschoolers and their Arab neighbors.

The Revson board supported an uncommon degree of risk in so many of the projects we undertook over the years.  They have made possible a creative and far-reaching grant program.  Lisa’s presentations, her command of an astonishing array of issues, and her persuasive powers were no small factors in their trust and confidence.  When Lisa spoke, concern seemed to melt away, and all things seemed possible.

“Modest charisma” are words that rarely can be used together but describe the quintessential Lisa. I was often amazed watching her captivate people at meetings and conferences.  “Her magnetism,” one friend said, “was a mystery even to her.  When people crossed her path, they didn't want to leave it.” You could hear Lisa’s voice even in her--always artfully drafted--e-mails. Friendship was her calling, and, as a friend said, “When we talked, time slowed down.”

She maintained a dynamic, perfect balance between work and home, a unique harmony of the personal, professional, social, and political—and in this she was a role model to so many of her women colleagues and friends, and to me as well.

Lisa came to Revson when it was rare for women to lead foundations and was a part of the era when women were moving dramatically to head foundations all across the country.  She had so many opportunities to leave over the years. In fact at one time, head hunters were treating her as one of the hottest prospects in philanthropy to head a major new foundation, or take a high level job in a leading established foundation.  She stayed, I think, for the spirit of what we were doing--building a small and somewhat daring foundation that believed in the power of the idea and in reaching out to invite other funders as partners to join us and working to make these partnerships happen. 

As it turned out, the foundation was a perfect setting for her–to be both a learner and teacher, and to make a difference.  For the foundation, and for me, Lisa succeeding me was an ideal evolution in our joint history and a natural destiny that crowned her career and called on all her remarkable gifts. 

When she became president, Lisa immediately began to review every aspect of the foundation—from staffing to program to finance.  She explored big ideas that might actually be achieved over a ten-year period.  An early believer in the potential of the Internet to educate, inform, and build community, she spoke with young pioneers who were dreaming about the impact of the telecommunications revolution in next decade—on politics, government, public policy, education, and how we live and think. 

She came up with some sweeping concepts—like identifying and cultivating young leaders and facilitating their careers. She cared deeply about the future of the Jewish people and the future of all of us, and she believed passionately that young people hold the secret--the talent and energy and ideas--to that better future.  She imagined a set of steps to build a worldwide Jewish community of the twenty-first century, using the Web with all of its emerging powers.  She initiated path-breaking new projects to test and develop these and other ideas. Of her work left undone, Bill  Moyers wrote to me, "Every death takes a vital life out of our midst and leaves a hole in the heart; a few leave a hole in the universe.”

“First, find yourself a teacher,” the Talmud says, as quoted by Lisa at my retirement dinner.  In truth, I learned far more from her than she possibly could have learned from me.

As I have looked for solace over the last few weeks, I found myself turning to a familiar impulse. I just wanted to talk to Lisa about our world without her.  The many friends who called--as all of us who loved Lisa reached out to one another–invariably agreed:  that she would not want us to be paralyzed with the grief we feel but would urge us to get on with the work of healing the world. We will have her memory to inspire us. The sound of her voice to remind us. The beauty of her smile to shine on us. And we can be grateful, as I am, to have had the good fortune to be in her company and to have known her as a comrade-at-arms, a conscience, and a friend.