Brad Ballast

Chief Operating Officer, Lever for Change 100&Change
Brad Ballast

Brad is responsible for the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of Lever for Change.

Most recently, Brad was Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago Foundation. Prior to joining Lurie Children’s Foundation, Brad was Executive Director of both the TAWANI Foundation and the Pritzker Military Foundation, focusing on grant making in a wide range of subject matter areas, with a primary focus on military history, historic preservation, environmental initiatives, health/wellness and gender and human sexuality.

Before that, Brad was Managing Director of U.S. Community Affairs for BMO Financial Group in Chicago. In that role, Brad was responsible for BMO’s community affairs activities across the bank’s U.S. footprint, including charitable giving, nonprofit sponsorships and the bank’s nonprofit board training and placement program. He also served as primary advisor to the bank’s executives about their own philanthropic engagement.

Brad was also a Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Contributions for LaSalle Bank in Chicago and was responsible for all of the bank’s charitable contributions and sponsorships, nonprofit board placements, volunteer programs and internal fundraising campaigns. Prior to that, Brad was Associate Director of Community Affairs at Harris Bank.

Brad has served on the boards of many nonprofit organizations, including the Chicago History Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Center on Halsted; Arts Alliance Illinois (formerly the Illinois Arts Alliance); Forefront (formerly the Donors Forum of Chicago); and Lookingglass Theatre.

Brad is a graduate of Hope College and has a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from Michigan State University.


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