Nadine Dechausay

Nadine Dechausay is the Chief Strategy and Insights Officer at Communities Foundation of Texas. Her role focuses on leading the development and execution of the Foundation’s community impact strategy, strengthening organizational effectiveness, and mobilizing data to drive impact.  

In this role, she is guiding the foundation in launching a $100M impact investment fund and a public-private-philanthropic coalition for housing affordability called HouseDTX. Nadine’s driving purpose is innovation through human-centered design. She works across internal stakeholders, governance bodies, partner organizations, and the communities CFT serves to identify solutions that capitalize on available assets and drive sustainable change.

Nadine previously served as Senior Director of Learning and Insights at CFT, where she built out the foundation’s strategic learning function, consulted with peer foundations on innovative philanthropy, and led workshops on evaluation to strengthen capacity among nonprofits. She designed and taught the Measuring Social Impact and Effective Storytelling course at the Center for Nonprofit Studies and was the 2020 Designer-in-Residence at SMU’s Master of Arts in Design and Innovation.

She began her career at CFT as the Director of Community Philanthropy, overseeing grantmaking for the $400 million W.W. Caruth Jr. Fund in the areas of health, education, and criminal justice. Her leadership introduced a new chapter for the major grants program by launching the first open competition and articulating strategic priorities by issue area.

Prior to CFT, Nadine was Senior Research Associate at MDRC, a national social policy research firm, where she directed the Center for Applied Behavioral Science and managed several national and local evaluations. She holds a J.D. with honors, and M.A. degrees in Criminology and Applied Psychology from the University of Toronto. She has undergraduate degrees in Education and Human Biology from Brown University.

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP / BOARD SERVICE

Nadine serves on the board of the Dallas Community Land Trust and the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation. She is a licensed consultant with Standards for Excellence. She has served for many years as a youth basketball coach in her community.