Center for Evaluation Innovation
Dr. Hanh Cao Yu is the Editor-in-Chief of The Foundation Review, Special Issues and the Executive Director of the Center for Evaluation Innovation (CEI) At CEI, she leads all aspects of CEI’s efforts in partnering with philanthropy to provide changemakers the space and resources needed to advance racial justice and create an equitable future.
From 2016 to 2023, she served as the Chief Learning Officer at The California Endowment (TCE) where she oversaw learning, strategic development, evaluation, and impact activities, and ensured that local and state grantees, board and staff understood the results and lessons of the Foundation’s investments in its 10-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative. BHC focused on social determinants of health, policy systems change through a community-driven, power building approach.
Dr. Yu’s career spans three decades in the research, evaluation, and philanthropic sectors. Prior to joining TCE, she was Vice President at Social Policy Research Associates. Dr. Yu has expertise in culturally responsive, equitable evaluation, in the areas of health and racial equity, social change philanthropy, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, policy advocacy evaluation, community organizing, movement building, and vulnerable populations. As a researcher at Stanford University, Dr. Yu authored numerous publications, including Adolescent World: Navigating the Multiple Worlds of Family, Peers, and School (Teachers’ College Press, 1998). She also contributed to The Handbook on Leadership Development Evaluation (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Her recent writings can be found in the Stanford Social Innovation Review Philanthropic Investment in Power and Building People Power Series. Dr. Yu is a national leader in philanthropy, research, learning & evaluation and have served on the Board of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Population Health Improvement, Partnership for Advancing Health Equity, the Emergent Learning Community Advisory Board, and an ambassador for the Trust-based Philanthropy Project.