Kris Putnam-Walkerly is a trusted advisor to the world’s leading philanthropists. For over 20 years, ultra-high net worth families, foundations, Fortune 500 companies, and family offices have sought and benefited from her advice to transform their giving and catapult their impact. Kris also works closely with estate planning attorneys and financial and wealth advisors to serve wealthy families wishing to deepen their philanthropic commitments.
As president of Putnam Consulting Group, she is recognized worldwide as a leading philanthropy consultant. Recent awards include Philanthropy Advice award by Family Wealth Report (2022), Best Philanthropy Advisor of the Year (Lawyer International 2022), Best Philanthropy Advisor of the Year (M&A Today 2022), Best Philanthropy Advisor in the Global 100 Awards (KMH Media Group), Most Dedicated Philanthropic Advisor (LUXLife Magazine 2021), Top 20 Most Successful Women Leaders (The Corporate Magazine 2021), Philanthropy Advisor of the Year (Corporate America Today 2021), and Top 50 Philanthropy Bloggers & Influencers (Feedspot 2020). Kris was also named one of “America’s Top 25 Philanthropy Speakers” for the last three years (Philanthropy Media) and was inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame in 2017.
Kris is a published author of both Delusional Altruism: Why Philanthropists Fail To Achieve Change and What They Can Do To Transform Giving (Wiley, 2020) and Confident Giving: Sage Advice for Funders, and is a regular Forbes.com contributor on philanthropy. She has also provided expert commentary about philanthropy to Bloomberg Wealth, WSJ, NPR’s Marketplace Morning Report, Washington Post, and Variety, and published articles in ThinkAdvisor, Wealth Management, Worth.com, Robb Report, Family Office Magazine, Financial Advisor Magazine, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and more.
Kris has served as a trustee of the Community Foundation of Lorain County (Ohio) and the Horizons Foundation in San Francisco. She was also a founding member and Steering Committee Chair of the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers, advisory board member of Foundation Center Midwest (now Candid), and currently serves on the Membership Committee of Philanthropy Ohio’s Board of Directors.
Prior to forming Putnam Consulting Group, Inc., Kris was a grantmaker at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and an evaluator at Stanford University School of Medicine. She holds a master’s degree in social work from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University (Bloomington). She and her husband have five children, reside near Cleveland, Ohio.