Prentice Zinn

Prentice Zinn chairs GMA’s board of directors, is a senior member of our consulting team, and staffs several local, regional, and international foundations. He is best known to his clients and colleagues as an advisor, educator, and facilitator.

Prentice specializes in start-up work with new donors, planning for multi-generational philanthropy, guiding boards in rethinking mission and focus, and identifying high impact funding opportunities. His primary grantmaking expertise is in the areas of the environment, community development, human services, economic mobility, and public policy.

In support of the field of philanthropy, Prentice designs and leads interactive workshops on monitoring, evaluation, and learning, and shares his observations in blog posts, recently about grantmaking due diligence and diversifying family boards. He co-edited Collaborating for Change: A Participatory Action Research Casebook, a collection of stories from grantees that show how democratizing research supports social change, and later wrote about how the book project supported a foundation’s reflection and learning.

Prentice is a founding member of Jamaica Plain Cohousing in Boston, a board member of Hesperian Health Guides, and a board member of  Philanthropy Massachusetts. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Prentice also earned master’s degrees from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and the Boston University School of Public Health.

Prentice grew up in Flint, Michigan and started a lifelong path in the nonprofit sector in high school. His years in Detroit, Denver, and Boston have made him a keen critic of generalizations about nonprofits and philanthropy.