04 · Area of work
The question is not how to start programs. It is how to build institutions that keep creating outcomes after the founder leaves the room.
Jeff has spent roughly a decade building community infrastructure: programs, partnerships, physical spaces, workforce initiatives, convenings, research and a network that now reaches beyond New York. Gentlemen's Factory is the most visible result.
He studies institution building as well as practicing it. What separates a program from an organization, and an organization from an institution people trust? He points to a written method, measurement, governance that can correct the founder, leaders who can make decisions the founder wouldn't, and partnerships that belong to the institution rather than one person.
His board service is the other half of the practice: helping existing institutions govern well, alongside building new ones.
In practice
Select a tile for details.
Built · Ongoing
Founded in Brooklyn as intentional community for Black and Brown men. Now evolving into a human development institution: structured cohorts, school partnerships, institutional and workforce services, research, and measurement of what changes.
gentlemensfactory.comConvened · Ongoing
Gatherings designed to put people with ideas, influence, resources and execution capacity in the same room. They include seven editions of the annual Change Agent Mixer and Bridging the Divide: Black & Brown Leaders in Tech.
GF eventsBuilt · Ongoing
A living data platform tracking Black male economic mobility across wellness, work and wages, wealth and voice. It draws on federal data, including more than 72,000 searchable corporate EEO-1 filings.
View the researchIdeas
Occasional essays and analysis on human development, economic mobility and the institutions we need next. No spam.
