Nadine Dechausay

Nadine Dechausay is CFT’s chief strategy and insights officer. Her role focuses on leading the development and execution of the Foundation’s community impact strategy, enterprise-wide business process improvement, and mobilizing data to drive impact.  She is a leader in CFT’s philanthropic advising practice for family and corporate foundations who are building strategic plans or seeking to be more innovative grantmakers. Nadine previously oversaw grantmaking for the W.W. Caruth Jr. Fund at CFT and led the Learning and Insights function within the Philanthropy Department.  Her passion is social innovation and building capacity among all social sector organizations.   

Prior to joining CFT in 2018, Nadine was a 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 has published implementation research findings and spoken widely on topics related to behavioral economics, incentives, and evidence-based policymaking. She is an expert in design thinking who has helped nonprofit leaders innovate by applying behavioral insights and leveraging new technologies. 

Nadine holds a J.D. with honors and master’s degrees in criminology and applied psychology from the University of Toronto. She holds bachelor’s degrees in education and human biology from Brown University.  In recent years, she has served as an adjunct professor at the Nonprofit Studies Center in Ausin and at SMU’s Master of Arts in Design and Innovation program. She is licensed in the Standards for Excellence, an ethics and accountability code for the nonprofit sector.  

COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP / BOARD SERVICE

Nadine is a licensed consultant for Standards for Excellence and available to deliver trainings to nonprofits on topics from board effectiveness to program evaluation. She is an instructor at Austin Community College’s Center for Nonprofit Studies where she created a course on measuring social impact. She is a volunteer youth basketball coach.

She’s served on the Texas Health Resources Foundation Board. She was elected to the Texas Health Resources Community Impact Dallas/Rockwall Leadership Council and was selected to be Designer in Residence for SMU’s Master of Arts in Design and Innovation, Fall 2020.