In the late summer of 1999, Pat returned from a three-year stint in Eastern Europe (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), where her primary responsibilities were community building and the development of the nonprofit sector as European Director of the U.S-Baltic Foundation.  She spent February 2000, in Sarajevo, working with nonprofits from throughout Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims), to develop a plan for the rebuilding of communities, by creating a united public identity for the nonprofit (NGO) sector.  In 2001, she led a UN mission to Cyprus to develop a plan to unite nonprofits from the Greek and Turkish sides of the divided island.

She has held executive positions in Louisiana government, a Fortune 500 Company and was a documentary film producer for a major ABC-TV affiliate. Receiving national acclaim, her documentary on the Louisiana wetlands was nominated for an Emmy.

As Director of the Louisiana Office of Women’s Services, she passed landmark legislation in Louisiana, established some of the first family violence, rape crisis centers and nontraditional training programs for women in the nation.  She built the office into a multi-million-dollar operation, receiving national recognition for its employment and training programs for welfare recipients.

She founded the Center for Women and Government at Nicholls State University in Louisiana and was the lead staff person in establishing the National and Community Service program in the state.

Presently, Pat is Director of the International Project for Nonprofit Leadership (IPNL) at the University of New Orleans. The project has established Nonprofit Leadership Courses as a concentration in the College of Urban and Public Affairs, the first such courses in this part of the nation.  

Its signature project, Urban Routes (UR), is a model of university-community engagement. Urban Routes focuses on building the capacity of neighborhoods to do their own work. It implements a neighborhood based community-building strategy by leveraging a strong university-neighborhood partnership to build the capacity of neighborhood residents, nonprofit and faith-based organizations to work collectively on neighborhood identified projects.

Urban Routes currently is working in four neighborhoods: Lower Ninth Ward, Holy Cross, Central City and Treme to assist in their planning efforts and to build the capacity of neighborhood associations to implement their plans.

IPNL is actively engaged in the formation of two new organizations post-Katrina. The Unified Nonprofits of Greater New Orleans, composed of over 200 nonprofits, meets weekly to exchange information and network. The Neighborhoods Planning Network of neighborhood associations with over 100 organizations meets weekly. Both organizations have become critical networking and resource sharing for their members.

Urban Routes post-Katrina offers a new and expanded role for IPNL, based on best practices in disaster rebuilding. It offers the advantage the director, Pat Evans, brings to the table in working with disaster recovery in Sarajevo, Cyprus, and the Baltic States. It is based on the concept of neighborhoods learning to rely on each other by working collaboratively through partnerships on concrete rebuilding tasks.

Neighborhoods increase their awareness of their individual assets and how to effectively align them to collective initiatives. This learning experience is accomplished by increasing the knowledge and skills for participants to form a Community of Practice (COP). In other words, offering literacy and education in neighborhood disaster planning, management and rebuilding capacity to carry out missions in a post-Katrina environment.