Members/Partners

Member Profiles


Jeffrey S. Cribbs, Sr.

Name: Jeffrey S. Cribbs, Sr.

Title: President and Chief Executive Officer

Company/Organization: Richmond Memorial Health Foundation

ODP Member Since: December 2007

ODP Committee Affiliation: Board of Directors, Health & Long-term Care

Summarize your professional background relevant to Age Wave preparedness.

Cribbs serves as a founding director and board member of the Older Dominion Partnership. His healthcare workforce, policy and philanthropic experience are tremendous assets to the ODP collaborative.

What expertise or other strengths do you bring to the Older Dominion Partnership?

In addition to his position as CEO of the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation, Cribbs has been actively involved in health-care and age-wave issues in the Richmond community. He serves on the boards of the following:

  • Advisory Committee for the Nurse Leadership Institute of Virginia, a leadership development initiative working to enhance leadership skills and retain professional nurses in the workplace. Cribbs chairs this institute.
  • The Commonwealth of Virginia Nursing Education Reform Committee.
  • The Healthcare Workforce Data Center Advisory Council for the Virginia Department of Health Professions. He serves as chair.
  • The State Council of Higher Education’s Outstanding Faculty Awards Committee and the Council’s Long-Range Planning Committee.
  • The Partnership for Nonprofit Excellence, a regional partnership of business and philanthropic leaders working to improve organizational and executive leadership capacities in the region’s nonprofit sector. He serves on the executive committee.
  • The Richmond District of the Virginia Conference of United Methodist Church. He serves on the investment and finance committees.

Cribbs is a frequent guest lecturer on philanthropy and strategic planning at colleges and universities.

What do you believe are the most pressing issues in Age Wave-preparedness in Virginia today?

Lack of awareness at the policy level is the most pressing issue. For example, ODP research showed a disconnect between the importance attached to age-wave planning in the minds of the public and the priorities of local government officials.

When it comes to the health care arena, health care planning comes from an infrastructure that was built to serve today’s seniors – not the upcoming generation of seniors who have entirely different expectations of how they’re going to live and how they’re going to be treated. Are we building the wrong infrastructure?

Beyond the traditional health care delivery piece, aging services need to redefine what they do and how they do it in order to satisfy the new audience. The current services are resonating with a maturing population.

What advice do you have for age wave planning in Virginia?

Awareness, awareness, awareness… Advocacy, advocacy, advocacy… Act, act, and act.

I’m concerned that those of us who are aware of the age wave as an issue may not have our feet on the ground. We need to move through the initiative stage into action. The Older Dominion Partnership is what this is all about.