In April, Patrick T. McCarthy became president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. He succeeds Douglas W. Nelson, who has retired.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation was founded in 1948 by UPS co-founder Jim Casey and his siblings, and is named in honor of their mother. The foundation, which moved from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Baltimore in 1994, focuses on at-risk children and families. Jim Casey also established Casey Family Services, a direct services agency through which the Casey Foundation provides child-welfare services in New England and Baltimore. Prior to his new appointment, McCarthy oversaw Casey’s efforts to reform public human services systems, a strategic consulting group, and direct services as the foundation’s senior vice president.
In the past two years, the foundation completed a “thorough review” of its grants and direct services programs. “We integrated the work of Casey Family Services, our system reform work, the work of the Casey Strategic Consulting Group, and our efforts to influence practice and policy in the public and nonprofit human services sectors (especially child welfare and juvenile justice),” McCarthy says. “This includes redeploying staff and fiscal resources to share talent and resources across Casey Family Services and our grantmaking operations.”
“The guiding principles of our future work will be integration and scale,” McCarthy explains. “As Casey’s new president, I am keenly interested in building on our strongest work and extending into several new initiatives.” Over the next several years, the foundation will seek to place more foster children with re-unified families or in adoptive homes, move away from current detention models for juvenile justice, spark a push to have every child reading at grade level by third grade, and ensure that the revitalization of troubled neighborhoods makes the families who live in them better off.
McCarthy first joined Casey in 1994. He was previously senior program officer at the Center for Assessment and Policy Development and Director of the Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services at the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth, and their Families. He began his career as a psychiatric social worker in New Jersey.
McCarthy has taught at the University of Southern California’s Graduate School of Social Work and Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, where he earned his Ph.D. in public policy. He holds an M.S.W. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in psychology from Manhattan College.
In March, Marie V. McDemmond became board chair of Lumina Foundation for Education. She succeeds John M. Mutz. McDemmond has been a member of Lumina’s board since its founding in 2000.
I am deeply honored to have been chosen by my colleagues to chair Lumina’s board,” says McDemmond. “The foundation is solely dedicated to a mission I hold very dear: fostering college success among low-income students, students of color, first-generation students, and adult learners. We want all Americans to reach their fullest potential, and we’re convinced that post-secondary education is key to that effort.”
McDemmond fully embraces the “Big Goal” Lumina has set for itself: 60 percent of Americans with high-quality, post-secondary degrees or credentials by 2025. “To realize that ambitious goal, we must do more to assist underserved students,” she emphasizes. “We must also find ways to make higher education more productive while ensuring that the degrees students earn truly equip them for success in the workplace and in life.”
She is currently interim dean of Florida International University’s College of Education and president emeritus of Norfolk State University in Virginia, where she presided from 1997 to 2006. Her experience leading a historically black university gives her unique insights into “a student population similar to those that Lumina Foundation now seeks to serve. At Norfolk State, we learned that for our students to succeed, we had to combine resources, developmental activities, and data in ways that truly met students’ needs. That lesson will continue to serve me well at Lumina.”
McDemmond’s career in higher education includes senior financial and operations management positions at several colleges, including Florida Atlantic University, Emory University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as well as the Massachusetts state community college system.
In addition to her service in higher education, McDemmond has led or served on the boards of dozens of nonprofit organizations and professional associations. She has received several awards, and was named by George W. Bush to the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She received her bachelor’s degree from Xavier University of Louisiana, her master’s degree from the University of New Orleans, and her Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
At the end of 2009, Donna Windel retired as director of granting at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation after 23 years working there. She is succeeded by Mary Kate Wilson, who was promoted after 12 years of service at the Noble Foundation.
The Noble Foundation was founded in 1945 by oil-drilling pioneer Lloyd Noble, who named the organization after his father. Noble sought to help Oklahoma agricultural producers and land stewards recover from the Dust Bowl by improving their farming and land conservation practices. His foundation employs more than 370 people in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Its three operating divisions focus on helping farmers through agricultural research, plant sciences, and forage improvement.
Now the largest foundation in Oklahoma, the Noble Foundation has a granting program that focuses on capital giving to higher education, health research and delivery systems, and nonprofits primarily in Oklahoma. The Noble Foundation’s trustees view the granting program as a way to have an impact on the region beyond agriculture. “We have made a few grants from time to time in agriculture-related areas, but typically our granting is done in other areas,” Windel explains.
As director of granting, Windel oversaw 2,000 grants worth about $240 million. “You don’t know sometimes for 5 or 10 years how much impact a grant will have,” she says. “Our most significant investments have been in health research and in capital projects for higher education, primarily in Oklahoma. We’ve also provided start-up funds for new university projects as well as new scholarship programs. I’ve enjoyed watching those programs develop and mature over the years. Timing is a critical factor in grant support, and in earlier years our investments in public policy projects have also been very effective.”
As for her successor, “Mary Kate has a really great understanding of good grantmaking,” Windel says. “She is intelligent and organized, personable and diligent. She will make an excellent director.”
Since joining Noble in 1997, Wilson has coordinated Profiles and Perspectives, a speaker series that brings nationally known lecturers to Ardmore, and managed the Sam Noble Scholarship Program. “It is my goal to continue the legacy of excellence we have established in the granting department,” she says.
Wilson serves on several community boards and organizations, and co-owns the Carter County Animal Hospital. She received her B.S. in journalism and broadcasting from Oklahoma State University.
Both Windel and Wilson put a premium on honoring Lloyd Noble’s charitable intent. “Several years ago,” says Windel, “we compiled many of Mr. Noble’s writings and interviews that were done with him. That’s been one of the keys to maintaining his legacy.”
Noble helped his successors with the task. He was a prolific writer who made his views and intentions abundantly clear. “He put a lot of his thoughts down on paper,” Wilson adds. “This is an invaluable resource as we carry out the mission that he set forth 65 years ago.”
In October 2009, Yvonne Hunt was named the first-ever chief philanthropy officer at Legacy Venture. She was previously vice president of global philanthropy at Hewlett-Packard.
Legacy Venture is a Silicon Valley–based venture capital fund of funds that directs all of its returns to philanthropy. (For more information, please see the Fall 2009 issue of Philanthropy.) Since 1999, it has raised five funds and currently has 225 members and $750 million under management. Hunt’s new post is designed to “amplify the philanthropic impact of its members,” she explains. When Legacy’s venture funds mature, its members themselves decide where to allocate philanthropic dollars, and Hunt’s role is to build community among its membership to promote peer-to-peer learning.
Hunt has also joined the board of Legacy Works, the charitable arm of Legacy Venture, which works to strengthen the philanthropic field. She is “spending time with members to understand what is most helpful to support them,” she explains. “What’s exciting about this field right now is the conversation around collaboration and partnership.”
Hunt was attracted to Legacy’s approach to philanthropy. “It’s a very unique value proposition,” she explains. “These members will have access to the highest-performing funds and every member commits to give away all the dollars to philanthropy, making this a strong community that people want to be a part of.”
During her tenure as executive director of the Hewlett-Packard Company Foundation, Hunt oversaw the distribution of more than $47 million in annual grants worldwide. Prior to that, she served as vice president for internal communications at HP.
Hunt is involved with many nonprofit organizations, particularly those working in education, microenterprise development, and the environment. She received her B.Sc. in business from the University of Bradford.
In January, Tom Riley returned to The Philanthropy Roundtable in the newly created position of vice president for communications. He manages the Roundtable’s publications and outreach and communicates the power of philanthropy to a wider audience. “I’m constantly struck by how few people realize how large and important the field of philanthropy is, and how frequently it touches their lives,” says Riley. “The popular understanding of modern American philanthropy is woefully incomplete. I’d like to help change that.”
By encouraging communication among donors, Riley is confident that the Roundtable can help them to achieve philanthropic excellence. “The Roundtable provides a terrific meeting ground for donors to share their experiences—what works and (often just as important) what doesn’t,” he says. “Americans love innovation, and the utility of successful charitable innovation is not just in its outcomes, but in the examples provided to other donors.”
Riley worked at the Roundtable between 1998 and 2001 as director of research. He also served as associate editor of Philanthropy and compiled Philanthropy Update, a daily e-newsletter.
For the past eight years, Riley served as communications director at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, where he was the federal government’s principal spokesman on drug and addiction-related issues. He managed programs that ranged from Super Bowl ad placements to international communications strategies.
Riley first became interested in philanthropy through his service as a trustee at the Connelly Foundation outside of Philadelphia. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Georgetown University and a law degree from Villanova.
In February, Jo Kwong joined The Philanthropy Roundtable as director of philanthropic services. She was previously vice president for institute relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.
In her new role, Kwong will work personally with donors, introducing them to the resources that the Roundtable has to offer. “My goal is to help donors develop effective and rewarding ways to achieve their philanthropic wishes, largely by working together to build private, voluntary programs,” says Kwong. “In so doing, my broader goal is to help deploy greater philanthropic resources to programs that are consistent with the free society.”
“Networks are vital to helping people acquire the resources needed to make informed choices,” she adds. “This is what the Roundtable does so well. It provides the venues, publications, and networks for like-minded philanthropists to gather, exchange ideas, explore new alternatives, and discuss potential charitable opportunities.”
For the past 20 years, Kwong has worked on advancing free-market ideas across the globe at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Capital Research Center, and the Property and Environment Research Center. Kwong is also an expert on free-market environmentalism; she has published several books and articles on the subject. She received her Sc.B. in biology from Brown University, as well as a master’s in urban planning and a Ph.D. in natural resource economics from the University of Michigan.
