27. Nancy Rauch Douzinas

Whether promoting programs to help disadvantaged children, protecting the Pine Barrens, or bringing together Long Island’s nonprofit, business and government leaders to forge a new approach to solving our region’s problems, Nancy Rauch Douzinas has made the Rauch Foundation an instrument for transformation since its inception in 1961. Thanks to her support of the Long Island Index, a project that gathers and publishes important data in an unbiased manner, policymakers can start with the facts. The 2011 Index was a definitive status report on the quality of life on LI. In 2013, the Index examined how the Long Island Rail Road could propel the Island’s economic future. Douzinas knows she doesn’t have all the answers, which is what makes her curiosity so compelling and so worthwhile.