Lecturer in Nonprofit Management

He has experience in all aspects of nonprofit enterprise as an executive, trustee, advisor and teacher. He also has substantial business experience including as executive vice president of the Prudential Real Estate Investment Company and as a director of the Vanguard Mutual Funds.

Firstenberg was chancellor of Tulane University (1989-1991) where he developed a new academic and financial plan for the University and also significantly reduced administrative expenses. He was an officer of the Ford Foundation (1970-72), financial vice president of Princeton University (1972-76), chief operating officer and trustee of Children’s Television Workshop (1976-83) and has just completed a term (2001-05) as executive director of American, the American wing of an international network that supports and administers schools in sixty countries.

Prior to joining American Ort, he was a general partner of Zuckerman, Firstenberg & Company, a financial consulting firm. Among its assignments it established a fund for the Polish American Fund to provide equity capital to housing developers and worked for the Russian Government in attempting to establish a private real estate market in the country.

He is a lawyer by profession and author of numerous articles on financial and management and several books on the nonprofit sector including Managing for Profit in the Nonprofit World (1986) published by the Foundation Center (drawing on his experience in teaching at SOM on management of nonprofits)

JD Harvard University, 1958
BA Princeton University, 1955