Lisa M. Lacey

A passionate advocate for community engagement initiatives

Lisa Michelle Lacey is co-founder and managing director of The Communications Philanthropy Group, LLC (TCPG). Established in 2000, TCPG provides strategic planning, fundraising, communications and donor cultivation services to emerging and established charitable foundations, nonprofits, universities and public policy-research firms.

Ms. Lacey has more than 25 years of experience in strategic public relations–successfully promoting the social change accomplishments of national charities, community-based nonprofits, universities, charitable foundations and educational institutions. She has a reputation for innovative, cause-related marketing strategies and several "first in the nation" communications initiatives.

Prior to co-founding TCPG, Ms. Lacey served as director of communications for the Marin Community Foundation, where she promoted an emerging public policy role for the Foundation, promoting grant-making in the program areas of: education, the arts, community economic development, human needs and the environment. She was instrumental in generating media placements in the Wall Street Journal, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and in the Marin Independent Journal.

She has served as a management member of the executive staff for the State Bar of California, where she handled media relations, public affairs and the Bar's Center for Best Practices and Bar Relations. Ms. Lacey ignited the legal community's impact on consumer education through the nation's first "Legal Literacy Survey: Californians Score C- on Legal Rights and Responsibilities." That effort generated an interview on NBC's Today Show for the State Bar president, hundreds of news stories that appeared in all of California's major metropolitan newspapers and in many ethnic media (newspapers, television, radio) outlets.

Ms. Lacey served as corporate communications counsel to American Savings Bank, now Chase Bank, then the nation's largest savings and loan association. She succeeded in promoting the Bank on a national level as the Northern California manager of corporate public relations, and as an elected director of the bank's corporate foundation, she steered the financial institution through a burgeoning and complex regulatory environment and simultaneously helping maintain the institution's reputation. Ms. Lacey also promoted a corporate sponsored child care program, resulting in an ABC-TV Nightly News Special Report: "Who Cares For Our Children", and a TIME Magazine article featuring the bank's CEO discussing corporate social responsibility issues.

During Ms. Lacey's early career, she served as press secretary and speechwriter to the mayor and city council for the City of Sunnyvale, California, and was a grant writer/criminal justice planner for Los Angeles Mayor's Office. Her grant writing and research efforts resulted in a $3.5 million grant for the City's nonprofits, police department and city attorney's office.

A passionate advocate for community-based organizations, Ms. Lacey served for five years as the public relations chair on the board of the Bay Area Lupus Foundation. She has sat on advisory committees of the United Way in Los Angeles and Stockton, California. She was honored by the Women's Center of San Joaquin Valley for cause-related marketing and fundraising achievements.

Ms. Lacey is a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Public Policy, Planning and Development, where she earned a Master's Degree in Public Administration and Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice Administration from San Diego State University. Ms. Lacey resides with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area.