In June John Feather, PhD, became interim president and CEO of Archstone Foundation, where he has been a board member for four years. Dr. Feather is also an adjunct faculty member of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. As a longtime leader in aging, he spent seven years as director of the AARP Andrus Foundation, nine years as executive director and CEO of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists and nine years as CEO of Grantmakers in Aging, retiring in 2020. Our interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Sheena Uchino: Can you start by sharing a bit about your journey before joining Archstone Foundation’s board?
John Feather: I’ve worked in the field of aging pretty much my whole career. Although I started in academia and enjoyed working with students, I was not interested in engaging in academic politics.
In the early 1980s, there really wasn’t a strongly developed geriatrics infrastructure in medicine. I spent 17 years at the SUNY-Buffalo medical school, where we started one of the first fellowship programs to train geriatricians in both medicine and psychiatry. At that time, I had no formal training in aging but learned a lot on the fly.
Philanthropy was an interesting switch. A friend told me AARP was looking for a director of their foundation. Though I didn’t have any philanthropic background, I knew about aging. After a long series of interviews, I was chosen.
I also joined the board of Grantmakers in Aging, which back then was really tiny and one of the few philanthropic organizations involved in aging. That was the beginning of my long journey in philanthropy and aging.
Sheena: Does your background in organizational sociology provide a unique perspective on your work?
John: Absolutely. I have realized you can have a level of professional knowledge in a particular area, but then you have to figure out what you are actually good at. Sometimes those two are not the same.
As it turned out, I was not a good academic in organizational sociology, but I was pretty good at running things. My background made me acutely aware of how every organization is organized in both formal and informal ways. You might understand the formal organization, but it’s crucial to concentrate on how the place actually works. As a new leader, your job is to understand the organization’s unique culture, including the parts that are useful and the parts that may not be.
Sheena: What is your vision for your work in aging?
John: My specific vision is always focused on what the organization is doing. More broadly speaking, one of the incredible frustrations in my career is that we all knew that the aging of the baby boom generation was coming but we failed to adequately prepare. When I was in Buffalo in the 1980s, we were all convinced society would put the necessary resources into training geriatricians. And this did not happen. We have fewer geriatricians now than in 1990.
If I had to identify a single regret — and I’ve got plenty — that’s it. We failed largely because we never figured out a sustainable mechanism to pay healthcare workers for the care of older adults. We don’t value aging in our society. We avoid thinking about it, planning for it, and talking about it.
Even in philanthropy, aging is often disregarded. What people don’t recognize is that programs for children, families, and social services all have a huge aging component. I am not saying that foundations focused on youth and social services need to set up a separate program on aging, but they should be paying attention to how a life course perspective impacts their work.
Sheena: What are your priorities as the Foundation’s interim president and CEO?
John: I certainly agree with the vision to bring healthcare and human services together to provide coordinated care, particularly for older adults from marginalized communities. A major responsibility of the next president and CEO will be to consider a strategic planning process to achieve this.
There are some operational issues I can help resolve while in my current role. For example, we can better capture the added value the program team brings by engaging with grantees, coalitions, and the leadership they provide in numerous collaboratives. We spend a lot of staff resources on engagement and yet we fail to acknowledge and recognize the work – like connections to others and knowledge of the field – they do outside of grantmaking. In addition, the California Master Plan for Aging continues to be an incredible opportunity to bring forward our mission. Through this public-private partnership, we’ve been able to make change at a much higher level than the amount of money we have to invest in grants is able to do.
Sheena: As the first chair of the Foundation's JEDI Committee, can you share the importance of equity in philanthropy?
John: I have been involved in diversity issues for a long time, because for much of my career there were no women CEOs and no people of color in power, particularly in aging.
Our JEDI Committee decided fairly early that we wanted to look at our internal processes and think about how we show up, as well as how to embrace trust-based philanthropy — the concept of sharing power over decision making among donors, grantees, and communities. We found ourselves asking: If we’re not going to use the evaluation information we are asking of grantees, then why are we even asking them?
Now, we are focused on what we do outside the organization, and there is still a huge amount of work to be done. We have a unique niche in aging, and we need to speak more loudly and more often about issues relating to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. We need to be clear on why this is important to us and what it is we are doing.
The hostility in society towards DEI issues is strong and getting stronger by the minute. That’s the next big challenge.
Sheena: Can you share a guiding principle from your career related to work in philanthropy?
John: We serve the community with the resources we have. However, the money we grant is not our money. We are simply stewards of money, serving the public trust. I find it is absolutely essential to constantly remind yourself of that.
Sheena: What do you do to relax and for self-care?
John: Well, this one is a little sad — but I lost my husband last year and we had a long-time tradition: Every Friday after work we would share a bottle of Champagne and talk about the week, and I don’t have that anymore.
I do try to exercise every day, both walking and weight exercises. I also have lots of wonderful friends and am involved in many groups. I think it’s important to have activities that keep you busy and keep you in touch with people, as well as time to process things.
I also enjoy classical music, and a couple of years ago I got a master’s in Egyptology. I do a lot of online courses to keep up with the field and to hear interesting people. I like things that are intellectually demanding and see myself as a life-long learner.
Sheena: Thank you for sharing these insights with us!
