Colette Stanzler

Colette partners with funders, nonprofits, and government agencies to understand and implement best practices based on research and strengthen their performance measurement systems to measure success. Colette also works on collective action initiatives to facilitate coordination among multiple stakeholders across sectors to achieve a common set of outcomes. Colette’s projects focus on early childhood development and education, K-12 education, and college access and success.

Colette joined Root Cause in 2006 to launch its research and nonprofit assessment work. Leveraging experience from the business sector on how data is used to inform investor expectations of performance, Colette led a team in researching social issues to publish best practices likely to lead to positive outcomes and assessing over a hundred nonprofits. Colette also led the development of the Peer Performance Exchange, which provided programs with independent analysis, benchmarking against the field, and peer learning.

Prior to Root Cause, Colette worked in product development and internal strategy consulting at financial service firms, including Franklin Templeton, Scudder Weisel Capital, and Deutsche Bank. Colette also serves as the Vice Chair of Board of Trustees for the Phoenix Charter Academy Network. She holds an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from the University of Rochester in Political Science.