Mary Elizabeth Graettinger

Since 2012, Elizabeth has supported government agencies, non-profits, and philanthropy to accelerate and expand social impact. She specializes in long term projects to design, launch, and scale promising efforts – conducting critical, ongoing functions like research, community engagement, program design & evaluation, data capacity building, and partner engagement.

Elizabeth specializes in supporting lasting change at scale:

• Chicago Department of Public Health – development, launch, and expansion of universal newborn intervention, Family Connects Chicago – reaching over 30,000 newborns annually for maternal and child health screening in their homes (2018-present)
• Girl Coalition of Indiana – listening sessions with girls, caregivers, and youth providers to investigate the root causes of disparities between girls and boys in Indiana and build a call to action for all Indiana residents to address challenges faced by girls and improve the odds for their success (2024 – present)
• Lurie Children’s Hospital and the Illinois State Board of Education – creating a metrics system reflecting school capacity to support student mental health (Resilience-Supportive Schools Illinois) and program management for the Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing program (2022 – present)
• Chicago Public Schools – advancing a vision for culturally and linguistically sustaining, advanced literacy in one of the largest urban school districts in the country (2019 – present)  

From 2008-2012, Eli oversaw $40M in annual grants as VP of Community Investment at United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. Prior to that, she led organizational strategies in economic empowerment for women, racial justice, and sexual assault programming during her 8 year tenure with the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago.

She holds faculty positions with Northwestern University’s Harvey Kapnick Center for Business Institutions and at the University of Chicago Crown School of Social Work. She holds a BA with Honors from Wellesley College, MA from University of Chicago, and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has served on the boards of the Apollo Chorus of Chicago, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, and Center for New Community.