Thomas Burns is a strategic planning and evaluation consultant
with nearly 30 years of experience in the public, private, and
non-profit sectors. He has directed projects in the areas of
strategic planning, management development, organizational
design and restructuring, and multi-organizational
collaboration. He is currently Managing Director of the Urban
Ventures Group, a consulting firm that he founded in 2003 to
offer specialized planning and program development support to
foundations and nonprofits concerned with innovative approaches
to funding and implementing neighborhood revitalization work.
Prior to launching Urban Ventures, Dr. Burns served for 15 years
as Director of the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, a
nonprofit research and consulting organization based in
Philadelphia. There he focused on evaluating
foundation-sponsored grantmaking initiatives, many national in
scope, primarily in the urban and community development field.
Among these were evaluations of the National Community
Development Initiative’s initial phase, the Comprehensive
Community Revitalization Program in New York’s South Bronx, the
Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Rebuilding Communities Initiative,
the Fannie Mae Foundation’s Sustained Excellence Awards Program,
and the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World
initiative. Over the past decade he has also provided consulting
and assessment assistance to locally-sponsored housing and
community development partnerships in cities including
Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Prior to forming OMG in 1988, he served on the faculty of the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for nearly 10
years. While teaching at Penn he also served as a Group Director
at the Fels Center of Government and as a senior member of the
research staff of the Wharton School's Management and Behavioral
Science Center.
Dr. Burns holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and a
Master's degree in management and urban planning. He received
his Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania.
Thomas
Burns