Debbie Kobak

Debbie Kobak is a managing director at Arabella Advisors. She works to develop a network of corporate, individual, and institutional philanthropy clients who drive impact on the issues important to them by using the firm’s full platform of consulting, fiscal sponsorship, and technology services.  

Debbie has subject matter expertise in community and economic development, education, and impact investing. While at Arabella Debbie has worked on multiple engagements with corporations looking to refresh their strategic giving initiatives to create differentiated value, and family and institutional foundations developing new pillars of work across a range of issues including innovative strategies for community reinvestment, climate finance, healthy food production, mental health for teens, outdoor recreation, and faith-aligned impact investing and charitable giving. She was a banker for 16 years, providing investment, treasury management, and credit products to charitable foundations and institutional asset owners that delivered financial and social returns. She also led the corporate foundation of a Chicago-based bank.

In her early career, Debbie worked in the social sector for various public policy research and advocacy organizations in Washington, DC and Chicago focused on women’s reproductive rights, free and fair multi-party elections in the developing world, and the environment.

Debbie is an enthusiastic community volunteer, with a particular passion for refugee and immigrant rights organizations. She is currently on the board of RefugeeOne, the Midwest’s largest resettlement agency, and is a member of the Board of Visitors for Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. She also serves on the advisory boards of several education-related nonprofit organizations in Chicago. Debbie has a BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in political science (with honors) and French, and an MA in international development from the American University in Washington, DC.