Teri A Hansen, the president and CEO of Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation since July 2015, has announced her plans to retire from the Foundation.
Barancik Foundation’s Board of Directors will initiate a comprehensive search to identify the Foundation’s next president and CEO. Hansen will remain in her role throughout the search process and assist in the eventual leadership transition.
“Teri has been an incomparable leader during Barancik Foundation’s first decade, and she is an irreplaceable friend of the Barancik family,” said Board Chair Rebecca Harris Barancik. “She has truly honored Chuck and Margie’s belief in the power of philanthropy to make a meaningful difference in the lives of all people, and she has enabled us to exceed their vision of what their foundation could accomplish.”
Hired as Barancik Foundation’s first employee, Hansen has led the organization as it has awarded over $170 million in grants and initiatives and become one of the most respected and influential private foundations in the region and state. Under her leadership, Barancik Foundation has grown to over $700 million in assets and currently awards over $30 million in grants annually.
Among the Foundation’s accomplishments during her tenure are:
- Development and implementation of several major regional initiatives, including First 1,000 Days Suncoast, the Barancik Early Learning Initiative, and a teacher recruitment, retention, and recognition initiative in partnership with Sarasota County Schools.
- Funding the technological transformation of middle-school classrooms throughout the Sarasota County School District along with Gulf Coast Community Foundation and others.
- Providing rapid relief in Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties through grants and other support during the COVID-19 pandemic and several devastating hurricanes.
- Elevating and expanding the international Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research, which is awarded annually to accelerate pathways to new treatments and ultimately a cure for multiple sclerosis.
In 2022, the Foundation received “exceptionally positive” results in a Grantee Perception Survey conducted by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), with most key measures in the 100th percentile of comparable funders nationally. According to CEP, “Grantees perceive Barancik Foundation to have a strong impact on their local communities, providing ratings that place the Foundation as the highest rated funder in CEP’s comparative dataset.”
Board Chair Harris Barancik noted that the timing of the leadership transition, a decade into Hansen’s tenure, will position the Foundation to continue its upward trajectory and empower the next CEO to thrive. “We are at a pivotal point in Barancik Foundation’s growth,” she said. “The groundwork that Teri has established and relationships she has built will be like a springboard for a new phase of impact.”
Information about the CEO search will be made available on Barancik Foundation’s website.
A Legacy of Leadership
Culminating in her decade at the helm of Sarasota’s largest private foundation, Hansen has enjoyed an impactful and successful career of more than 30 years in philanthropy.
She came to Barancik Foundation from Gulf Coast Community Foundation, where she served as president and CEO for over 13 years. Prior to arriving in Florida, Hansen was vice president for gift planning and donor relations at The Cleveland Foundation, the oldest and one of the largest community foundations in the country. She also worked as vice president of external relations for Central Indiana Community Foundation and was the founding president of Legacy Fund of Hamilton County (Indiana).
“I’m really a ‘start-up’ person,” said Hansen. “It was the honor of my professional career to help Margie and Chuck Barancik explore the possibilities of their philanthropy and then build the structure to care for the community and organizations they loved in perpetuity.”
The most difficult aspect of Hansen’s presidency was the tragic, untimely loss of the Baranciks in an auto accident in late 2019. “Chuck and Margie were really beginning to understand the full potential of their giving,” she recalled. “They so enjoyed seeing firsthand the difference it could make. One of the best things Chuck ever said to me was that their Foundation’s impact had already exceeded his wildest dreams.”
“Simply put, no one else could have led our Foundation through that tragedy like Teri did,” said Harris Barancik. “The regional impact we have been able to make, hand in hand with our trusted nonprofit partners, is testament to Chuck and Margie’s wisdom in selecting Teri as their CEO and to her singular commitment to honor their legacy.”
