A Grant Maker's Upbeat Plans for the Big Easy

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About: Albert Ruesga, President, Greater New Orleans Foundation

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More than three years after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the Gulf Coast remains scarred by the storms' wrath. Yet Albert Ruesga is decidedly hopeful as he surveys the region that has just become his new home.

"The storms had an enormous impact on the city and its people, but there's an incredible energy and desire here to rebuild and make things new," says Mr. Ruesga, who moved to New Orleans last month to lead the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

While the new position required a geographic shift for Mr. Ruesga — he spent the past seven years working as the vice president for programs and communications at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, in Washington — his hiring marks an even more significant transition for the organization he will be heading.

"Our previous CEO [Gregory Ben Johnson] had been with us for 16 years," says Myron E. Moorehead, chairman of the community fund's board. "It was time for us to go in a different strategic direction, and we needed the right person to take us there."

The 25-year-old organization, with $192-million in assets, supports nonprofit groups that provide housing, education, and work-force development. Since the hurricanes, the Greater New Orleans Foundation has become the key charity in the region coordinating redevelopment efforts.

In the search for a new chief, says Mr. Moorehead, Mr. Ruesga's résumé immediately stood out. He began his career at the Boston Foundation and later founded New Ventures in Philanthropy, an effort by the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, in Arlington, Va. But Mr. Moorehead and his colleagues were also attracted to Mr. Ruesga's unique academic background.

"He has degrees in philosophy and physics, which told us that he's well-rounded," says Mr. Moorehead. "That background showed us that he has the ability to think strategically but also the creative, visionary aspect that comes from philosophical training. That combination is rare, and I think it's what's needed here in New Orleans, where there are a lot of problems and new thinking is definitely required."

The "new thinking" that Mr. Ruesga brings to his new job includes an ease with online communication: With his White Courtesy Telephone blog, he was one of the earliest leaders in philanthropy to embrace that medium.

Mr. Ruesga says that after 20 years spent on the East Coast, settling into his new hometown has been far easier than one might expect. He grew up in south Florida and lived in Cuba with his grandparents as a child, places of which New Orleans often reminds him.

"There's a warmth to the people here, and of course the climate is similar — you have the occasional hurricane passing through," he says. Mr. Ruesga's fluency in both French and Spanish is also proving to be a strength in a region where Creole ties run deep and the Latino population is growing.

During earlier visits to New Orleans, Mr. Ruesga says, he was immediately struck by the city's intense sense of place, a quality that makes him hopeful, both for the future of the region and for the organization he is now leading. "There's something about New Orleans that gets into your skin, and that sense of place is a community foundation's greatest asset," he says.

Mr. Ruesga declined to reveal his salary in his new job, which he started in January. His predecessor, Mr. Johnson, earned $185,332 in 2007, according to the foundation's most recently available tax information.

In an interview, Mr. Ruesga spoke about his new job and why New Orleans has always held a special attraction for him.

You're taking over for a president who served the Greater New Orleans Foundation for 16 years. How do you plan to make your mark?

My first plan is to shut up long enough to learn something. If I succeed at that, I'll work with our staff and board to deepen some remarkable work in housing that the foundation started after Katrina, as well as develop new strategies for increasing the quality of public education in the region. We recently launched affiliate foundations in the rural parishes that were hardest hit by the hurricanes. We need to better understand how the fate of our city is tied to the fate of these parishes.

Is there a specific grantmaking area you plan to focus on more than the foundation has in the past?

Yes. Our nonprofits took a significant hit during and after Hurricane Katrina. They would benefit from savvy investments in their management, governance, and fund-raising capacities.

I've had some success with this kind of work in Washington, so we'll be looking for partners to help us do this capacity-building work in New Orleans.

Speaking of Katrina, New Orleans is still hurting. How will that affect your mission?

Rebuilding continues, and we need help finishing that work. Of course we face many of the same challenges faced by other cities.

I don't know any major metropolitan area in the United States, for example, that doesn't struggle with the legacies of racism.

So we're rebuilding, yes, but we're also building something entirely new in the process. There's a widely shared sense that we can use this moment to reimagine and improve our region.

Will fund raising be a challenge? Do you view the Obama administration as a possible source of support for New Orleans?

Fund raising is always a challenge. New Orleans isn't as wealthy as other cities, perhaps, but a compelling case can be made for supporting it. It's a city with unmatched potential, one of the most culturally rich regions in the United States — rich in the diversity of its people, rich in history, rich in ideas.

Perhaps we should rebrand it: "New Orleans: the UnGeneric." That said, the federal government's role in helping New Orleans rebuild, strengthen its levees, and restore the Louisiana coastline is absolutely critical.

Absolutely. Like any endowed institution, our grant-making capacity rises and falls with the financial markets. Our programmatic work — especially in housing — will necessarily respond to shifts we see in our region.

New Orleans has bucked national trends on unemployment and other key indicators, but this is no time to be complacent.

You're now something of a cultural ambassador for greater New Orleans. What do you say to people who have stayed away from the region since Katrina?

People who associate New Orleans with the harrowing images they saw on their TV sets would be very surprised to visit today.