40 Influential Leaders - Richard Ober

Richard Ober
President and CEO of the NH Charitable Foundation

Dick Ober heads the largest private provider of nonprofit grants and student aid in Northern New England. But he doesn’t want too much credit. “I am one person in a statewide community foundation that literally involves hundreds and hundreds of people,” says Ober, president and CEO of the NH Charitable Foundation. “This work is truly and always a collective effort.” The foundation manages approximately $1 billion in charitable funds and awards some 7,000 grants and scholarships worth more than $60 million annually. The community foundation manages 2,300 charitable funds for NH residents and organizations including 400 scholarship funds.

“We have a single clear purpose as a foundation, to make New Hampshire a more just, sustainable and vibrant community where everyone can thrive,” Ober says. “We are focused on figuring out who isn’t thriving and why not and how we can work alongside and with the people of New Hampshire to achieve that vision.”

The foundation also focuses on environmental issues and the disproportionate impact of climate change on people of color and low-income families. The foundation also addresses early childhood education, civic health and substance abuse.

Now celebrating his 40th year working in NH’s nonprofit sector, Ober, a published author whose book “The Northern Forest” has won regional and national awards, is a board member of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. In 2016 he founded the Community Foundation Opportunity Network to bring community foundations together to achieve their  goals. “I consider myself a temporary steward of a timeless institution,” he says.