Meet Paul Sanchirico: New President of CCSCC's Board of Directors
When and how did you get involved in Catholic Charities?
After retiring in 2013, I started providing Catholic Charities with pro bono management consulting on business and operations plans for numerous programs including Immigration Legal Services, Adult Daycare and In-home Care, Parish Engagement, and the Responsible Landlord Engagement Initiative.
After joining the board, one of my contributions was researching, writing and producing a series of in-depth reports to inform and educate Board members and other stakeholders on challenges facing many Santa Clara County residents— especially those living in poverty, at-risk youth and seniors— and the services Catholic Charities offers to support them. More recently, as Chair of the Board’s Long Range Planning Committee, I convened the Board and agency team that developed the strategic plan. I’m particularly proud of the partnership that formed between agency staff and board members in the development of the plan. I’m excited about the long-range strategic plan and its ability to impact our clients, change the way the agency operates and be a beacon for how the humanitarian industry operates in the valley.
What is your personal mission of philanthropy?
I’ve always resonated with the Jesuit maxim “Men (and women) for others.” I try to use the skills, talents and insights I developed over my career in the tech sector to help others.
Is there one current issue facing our community that is most important to you?
While Silicon Valley is an economic and innovation engine admired around the world, poverty runs deep. According to the California Poverty Measure, about 300,000 residents in Santa Clara County live in poverty. I am passionate about finding ways to actually enable people to get out of poverty and stay there. I see it as a complex systems problem that requires the agency (and, indeed, the humanitarian industry) to move to a client-centric model of support rather than continuing with the current service-centric model.Further we need to be data-driven in how we mold our support and in how we prove our efficacy. This requires that we do a better job at collecting and analyzing real client data.
I’m energized by the Long Range Strategic Plan, known as ‘Footsteps’, as it is the agency’s initiative to deliver a systematic, scalable and measurable program that actually enables people to get out of poverty and to stay there. Among the non-profits working in Santa Clara County, Catholic Charities has the broadest portfolio of capabilities and is in the best position to deliver on this vision.
