Sidney Hargro is Philanthropy Network’s new executive director

Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia announced yesterday it had appointed Sidney Hargro as its new executive director.

The current Community Foundation of South Jersey (CFSJ) ED will take over on July 24. Director of Communications Amy Seasholtz served as the organization’s interim executive director after former head Maari Porter left back in November for a job as the city’s director of policy and strategic initiatives.

Hargro, who is known for having increased CFSJ’s assets from $400,000 to more than $20 million over the seven years of his tenure, would rather call himself a “community builder” than a fundraiser, as he said while speaking on a panel discussing philanthropy trends this week.

“That is the priority, always, for me, to look at the opportunities to tap into the synergy of those who have like passions to create change,” he said in an interview — accordingly, he thinks of Philanthropy Network as a “community of communities.”

The former mechanical engineer’s high-level goals for the network include making sure it’s a part of cross-sector discussions about solving Greater Philadelphia’s toughest problems.

“The reality is, philanthropy is one piece of the puzzle, so it’s can’t exist in isolation from public-private, multi-sector [partnerships] in the region,” he said. “The world around us is changing rapidly. Philanthropy [must] be flexible to meet those trends and think differently about social change. The future of philanthropy is not how we’ve handled philanthropy in the past.”

Hargro currently serves as a board member of both the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. He’s also a founding member of the Executive Alliance for Men and Boys of Color and the treasurer of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations.