Paul Gibson, MA, Founder & President, Gibson & Associates
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; and
- An integrated network of family health, education, teen pregnancy and youth development services for the City of Modesto.
To have a greater impact on how public agencies operate with existing resources, in 1998 Mr. Gibson shifted the focus of G&A’s services away from grant development, creating an innovative system of services that integrates best practice research, evaluation, participatory strategic planning, and coaching. 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, and the planning for San Mateo County’s Mental Health Services Act planning (Prop. 63).
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 school principals, and most recently has developed a system of coaching for all the Early Childhood administrators in Oakland Unified School District. In addition, he has led the development of Strategies for Effective Organizations (SEO), an integrated system of strategies and tools implemented with support from G&A coaches. SEO is designed to help schools (and other organizations) develop a culture of learning focused on continuous improvement and to foster the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational leadership in implementing these practices. 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. Plans are being developed to create a charter school, as well as to research, design and operate a range of innovative educational programs.
Prior to founding G&A, Mr. Gibson had been a child care director (two years), public school teacher (three years) and development director of a large non-profit organization (seven years).
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