As head of the Inclusive Impact practice at Redstone, Kathy Francis partners with foundations, their grantees, and the communities they serve to collaboratively and equitably develop strategies, programs, initiatives, and evaluations. Kathy facilitates this work across all Redstone sectors, including education and water management, with a focus on addressing racist and oppressive practices within existing systems. Using a collaborative approach that centers deep listening, and engages both qualitative and quantitative data to unlock insights across the social sector, she centers her approach on practical strategy development.

In her work, she provokes clients to think critically about questions such as:

  • Who do we listen to?
  • What questions do we ask?
  • What do we hear and learn from the information that comes in?

Select Redstone Projects

  • Applies Bayesian statistical models to deconstruct embedded racist data in designing more equitable and inclusive learning and evaluation protocols.
  • Provided long-term guidance of state and national initiatives to make critical data on water more open and accessible, resulting in the Internet of Water to improve sustainable, equitable, and resilient water outcomes.
  • Facilitated the design of governance and funding structures for the California Water Data Collective to support Assembly Bill (AB) 1755.
  • Facilitated the design of OpenET – a collaboration between NASA, Google Earth Engine, and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to provide open access to data on evapotranspiration across the Western US.

Background

Kathy has been a key member of Redstone leadership since she joined the firm in 2014. Prior to Redstone, she helped foundations integrate more equitable, community-centered approaches to their global health investments at the Ethical, Social and Cultural Program for Global Health at the University of Toronto. Previously, Kathy was a Greenwall Fellow at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, and a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kathy lives in Boulder, Colorado with her two daughters. Other loves in her life include running and riding bikes in the mountains, poetry, skiing, and gardening.

Education

  • London School of Economics, PhD Philosophy, Logic, and the Scientific Method
  • Oxford University, MSc Neuroscience
  • University of Colorado, BA, Philosophy