In this week's cover story, Neil D. Steinberg, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation, says that "Leadership is not anointed … it's opportunistic."
He has taken full advantage of his opportunity. Under his watch the state's only community foundation has created a series of programs and initiatives that have helped improve the lives of Rhode Island's citizens and institutions.
To get a snippet of just how active Mr. Steinberg has made the foundation, in the last 12 months, PBN has published 118 stories that named the foundation. In all of 2007, the year before he took the job, there were 34.
Some criticize the role that Mr. Steinberg has made the foundation take. But they are missing the point of a community foundation. Its mission should be helping the community fill the needs of its less fortunate, but also developing a strength and resilience that makes those needs of lesser scale.
Mr. Steinberg further said in this week's issue that "we need everybody engaged and everybody engaged positively." Rhode Island is fortunate that he is just that. •