MISSION-DRIVEN, VERSUS MISSION-CHALLENGED

Jacki Davidoff is a management and people consultant. Jacki consults with national and regional organizations to facilitate their growth, including identifying internal barriers that limit their effectiveness. She leads organizations to strengthen relationships among executive leaders, staff, Board, and external audiences. Jacki is also an executive leadership coach, supporting individuals and executives to develop their leadership capacities and create learning cultures in their organizations. 

Davidoff clients include: American Public Health Association, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, Christopher Family Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, deBeaumont Foundation, Michael Reese Health Trust, Civic Commons, Public Narrative, Public Health Institute, the Seattle Foundation, and the Smithsonian.

Jacki is the founder and facilitator of the Leadership Forum, a monthly convening for diverse nonprofit CEO’s and Executive Directors; and the Leadership Intensive, supporting women at all levels of leadership. She is also co-founder and co-facilitator of The Self-Aware Leader: Understanding How Race Affects Your Leadership, a 12-week cohort women’s leadership group for women of color and white women, launched in April 2022.

Jacki bridges both nonprofit and corporate sectors. Her background includes 30 years in leading national advertising agencies and senior executive positions in Chicago nonprofits. Prior to joining Davidoff, Jacki completed nine years at the Chicago Botanic Garden, where she worked in leadership roles in marketing and corporate/foundation fundraising, increasing the organization’s national and regional presence and growing its corporate support to record levels.

Jacki has been actively involved in racial justice training nationally and locally, beginning with training at age 22 with the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Healing Racism program. She became a national trainer, traveling to congregations around the country in her 20s to facilitate discussions about becoming Anti-Racist, Multicultural congregations. She has continued her own work around addressing race, power, and leadership in the decades since. She is Board Co-Chair of Chicago Women in Philanthropy and is a former Co-Chair of the Racial Equity & Social Justice committee. Jacki recently completed the inaugural cohort of Dismantling White Supremacy, led by Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy. She is also a senior advisor to the Philanthropy Club of Chicago.

Jacki is from Houston, Texas, and earned her BS in Advertising with highest honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her Master’s in Transformational Leadership and Coaching at Wright Graduate University in 2017. She lives in Evanston, IL, with her husband and business partner, Dr. John Davidoff. They have two young adult sons.