Paul Gibson, M.A.

Founder and President

In 1986 Paul Gibson founded Gibson & Associates (G&A) to provide a range of consulting services to non-profit organizations and public agencies. For the first ten years of its existence, G&A focused upon developing state and federal grants for public agencies and public-private partnerships. In that context G&A specialized in conducting organizational and systems assessments, literature reviews, and applied research, as well as facilitating the planning process that resulted in the production of written grant proposals. Under Mr. Gibson’s direction, G&A achieved over a 90% success rate and developed over $450 million in state and federal funding for agencies throughout northern and central California. Major initiatives led by Mr. Gibson and funded largely through state and federal grants include development of:

The San Francisco Drug Court system for adults and juveniles.
A continuum of housing and homeless services in Contra Costa County and the acquisition and rehabilitation of several downtown Oakland SRO hotels for the homeless.
Numerous innovative welfare reform initiatives linked to child care, education and employment.
Several university-city partnerships involving UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the cities of Berkeley and Oakland.
The Healthy Start infant mortality initiative, a national model developed in Oakland, California.
An integrated network of family health, education, teen pregnancy and youth development services for the City of Modesto.

Since 1998 Mr. Gibson has focused on developing an innovative system of services that integrate best practice research, evaluation, strategic planning, and leadership coaching in order to support the capacity of public agencies and schools to serve their communities. This approach has been used both in G&A’s Community Research & Evaluation work as well as in education. In relation to Community Research & Evaluation, Mr. Gibson has led or co-led the evaluation of Oakland’s Community Development Block Grant program, the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth strategic planning process, the planning for San Mateo County’s Mental Health Services Act planning (Prop. 63), the planning process for a Family Education and Resource Center in Alameda County, and the design of a Performance Measurement System for Oakland Unified School District, Adult and Career Education.

In relation to education, Mr. Gibson has led a highly respected team of educators who conduct a wide range of services for the state, for districts and for schools. Mr. Gibson has served as a leadership coach for five district administrators and to another ten elementary school principals, and most recently has developed a system of coaching for all the Early Childhood administrators in Oakland Unified School District. In partnership with the rest of G&A’s Education Team, Mr. Gibson is now developing a new non-profit organization, Gibson Learning Communities to further G&A’s work in education reform. The Oakland Health Science Academy has been approved by Oakland Unified School District and the California Department of Education and is slated for opening in August 2008.
Prior to founding G&A, Mr. Gibson was a child care teacher and child care director, a group home counselor, a high school English teacher, and for seven years served as the Development Director at Youth Homes in Contra Costa County during a time when the agency grew from a five site one-county program to a four county, fourteen site organization.