Tom Watson

Tom Watson is the president and founder of CauseWired, a 15-year-old consulting firm advising clients in the social sector: nonprofits, foundations and companies. Tom is a journalist, author, and consultant who has worked at the confluence of media and social change for more than 25 years. His client commitments have helped organizations and causes large and small to change the world and improve the lives of millions of people, from neighborhoods in the South Bronx to tribal lands in Africa, and especially in the cause of reforming justice and assisting underserved communities.

Tom is the author of CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, 2008 ) a best-selling book that chronicled the rise of online social activism and he has served for more than a decade as an instructor in the nonprofit management masters program at Columbia University, working with hundreds of young professionals to advance their careers and impact on society.

An active leader in the sector, Tom has more than 30 years of experience as a working board member, and now serves on the boards of BronxWorks (the largest settlement house in the South Bronx), the Ms. Action Fund (the 501c4 organization created by the Ms. Foundation for Women, where he also served on the Board), Sustainable Westchester (a nonprofit working on clean energy and environmental justice in suburban New York), and the Westchester County Human Rights Commission.

Tom’s client work focuses on education, social services, progressive causes, and the pursuit of social justice. Over the years, Tom has worked with many clients in strategic planning, case development, communications, branding development and marketing, as well as fundraising and development planning. His clients have included the following organizations: Innocence Project, Vera Institute of Justice, the Clinton Foundation, Sidney Hillman Foundation, Cabrini Mission Foundation, TrickleUp, the International Center for Journalists, the Case Foundation, Save Ellis Island, the Tiger Woods Foundation, the Tuskegee Airmen, Catholic Relief Services, and Christian Blind Mission.

During his long career as a journalist, Tom has written for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Forbes, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Worth and Contribute magazines, among many other publications. He is currently the author of The Liberal, an online newsletter with commentary on politics and society. Before launching CauseWired, Tom served for nine years as chief strategy officer and co-founder of Changing Our World, Inc., an international philanthropic services company that was acquired by the Omnicom Group, a Fortune 200 holding company. Tom also served as the publisher of onPhilanthropy.com, an extensive online resource for philanthropy professionals, and co-founder of the annual Summit onPhilanthropy, a gathering of philanthropy leaders in New York.

Before joining the philanthropic sector, Tom was co-founder and co-editor of @NY, the pioneering Internet news and information service that chronicled the rise of New York’s Silicon Alley new media in the mid-90s. Early in his career, Tom was the executive editor of The Riverdale Press, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in the Bronx, where he covered politics and won more than a dozen state and national awards for excellence in journalism.

Tom Watson is a frequent speaker at venues that have included the Global Philanthropy Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Symposium, Skoll World Forum, MIT Enterprise Forum, the Conference Board, Boardsource Leadership Forum, the Forum on Philanthropy, Association of Fundraising Professionals, and the Performance Institute as well as in university settings, including Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, New York University and City University London. Previously, he served as an adjunct professor in the master’s program for philanthropy at New York University and as an adjunct professor of new media at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.

He holds a degree in English literature from Columbia University. He lives in Mount Vernon, NY and is active in Westchester civic life.

Courses:

• NOPM PS5155: Leadership & Management of Nonprofits
• NOPM PS5390: Nonprofit Management Capstone Project
• NOPM PS5160: Communications and Marketing for Nonprofits