M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington, has appointed educator Steven G. W. Moore as its new executive director, effective July 10. Moore succeeds Neal O. Thorpe, who is retiring as executive director but will continue to serve on the Board of Trustees.
A former senior vice president of Asbury Theological Seminary and president of the Asbury Foundation, Moore feels “very privileged to be joining the Trust. It will be very exciting to be involved in the Trust’s ongoing grants program, and also to contribute to value-added activities in leadership development, fundraising, education, and the arts.”
The Trust has a very broad grants making program, providing grants in the areas of formal and informal education, health and human services, arts and culture, and scientific and medical research.
The Trust has five principal grant initiatives, which include the Murdock College Science Research Program, the Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences, the Exceptional Opportunity Grants Program (designed for regional graduate research universities), the Partners in Science Program (which provides research opportunities for high school science teachers), and the Program to Strengthen the Contemporary American Family.
GFC Foundation
Barely a year removed from Brigham Young University, Rachel Swim brings a youthful drive and an uncommonly mature focus to her new role as executive director of the GFC Foundation in Orem, Utah. Advancing the mission of the foundation set forth by her father Gaylord Swim, who passed away last year, Miss Swim continues to seek out organizations that build faith in God, strengthen marriage and family, and foster a love and appreciation for America.
One organization that Swim has found effective is Enterprise Mentors International, a nonprofit that provides microcredit loans to poor families in foreign countries in exchange for their participation in courses that teach them basic accounting principles. Over 95 percent of those loans are repaid.
At home, the foundation supports the American Heritage School, a 35-year-old K-8 school in American Fork, Utah, that integrates historical American moral values with a rigorous education. Swim’s father chaired the school’s board for over a decade. At least five other schools in Utah have followed American Heritage’s model.
As the foundation moves forward, Swim hopes to further the foundation’s deep involvement in the causes and the grantees it supports. According to Swim, “unless we give our time in addition to our funds, we don’t make a difference.”
Schuck Foundation
The Schuck Foundation in Colorado Springs recently announced the appointment of Don Griffin as its new president and CEO. Griffin succeeds Stephen Schuck, who will remain chairman of the foundation.
Griffin previously served as executive director of The Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired & Blind in Port Richey, Florida, from 2002 to 2006. He has more than 23 years of senior management experience and has held the chief executive position in several of the country’s top healthcare facilities.
The Schuck Foundation is a private seed funder of several public foundations, each of which is a strong champion of programs that help those in need achieve independence and self-reliance by taking responsibility for their own lives.
Griffin admires the foundation’s “commitment to address societal issues as a change agent. Over the next few years, the Schuck Foundation will seek to develop and fund new programmatic models, based on free market principles, which result in innovative solutions.”
Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in Baltimore recently appointed two new program officers, Amy Gross and Michael Kesselman.
Gross joins the Weinberg Foundation from The Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, where she served as Director of Community Initiatives. “I have been able to see the Weinberg Foundation’s work throughout Baltimore, the United States, Israel, and the former Soviet Union in my previous professional positions, and I know the impact that the foundation has in saving lives every day. Access to opportunities to alleviate poverty, whether through food assistance, education, job training, healthcare, housing, or other means is the core of the foundation’s work and I am so pleased to be able to help make a difference in these areas.”
Michael Kesselman brings more than five years’ experience as an independent consultant to nonprofits and foundations, assisting them with program development and evaluation, organizational management, and grants administration. From 1985 to 1999, he was a senior program officer and deputy director for programs at the Koret Foundation in San Francisco. Kesselman looks forward to helping the Weinberg Foundation “move into a new phase of growth and development, where the next generation of trustees and an expanded professional staff will use all they have learned about effective grantmaking to bring about even greater social benefit and positive change for communities suffering from poverty, especially the elderly poor.”
The Philanthropy Roundtable
The Philanthropy Roundtable has added three members to its growing staff. Shannon Toronto is the Roundtable’s new chief operating officer. Her experience in the philanthropic sector includes serving as the executive director of the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation, a charitable foundation providing grants throughout the state of Utah. She has also worked as the director of foundation relations at the Leadership Institute and has served as a marketing director for the Waterford Institute (an educational research center). Toronto is a graduate of Brigham Young University, with Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in English, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the BYU Management Society.
Directing the Roundtable’s new higher education breakthrough group is Frederic Fransen. For the past five years, Fransen has served as director of grants for the Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation. From 1996 to 2006, he was also variously a program officer, fellow, and senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., a private operating foundation.
Between 1988 and 1991, Fransen worked in Brussels, Belgium, as a researcher studying European Community and NATO security policy. Fransen has a Ph.D. in Social Thought from the University of Chicago and has written on topics ranging from the origins of the European Community and the interplay between literature and politics to bioethics, markets, and the future of health care policy in China. Fransen’s interests include water sports, reading, and travel; he has visited more than thirty countries on five continents.
Joining the Roundtable in the newly created position of staff assistant is Ashley Hall. Miss Hall is recently graduated from Bucknell University with a Bachelor of Science in business administration and a minor in education. While at Bucknell, she was an active member of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club and the Chi Omega sorority, in which she served as secretary and vice-president.
She also conducted independent research during her study abroad in Northern Ireland and is currently working to publish her findings concerning two public school integration initiatives within Northern Ireland’s religiously segregated school system. Hall has worked with Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law Enforcement Education, where she assisted the curriculum development specialist in organizing Homeland Security programming.
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington, has appointed educator Steven G. W. Moore as its new executive director, effective July 10. Moore succeeds Neal O. Thorpe, who is retiring as executive director but will continue to serve on the Board of Trustees.
A former senior vice president of Asbury Theological Seminary and president of the Asbury Foundation, Moore feels “very privileged to be joining the Trust. It will be very exciting to be involved in the Trust’s ongoing grants program, and also to contribute to value-added activities in leadership development, fundraising, education, and the arts.”
The Trust has a very broad grants making program, providing grants in the areas of formal and informal education, health and human services, arts and culture, and scientific and medical research.
The Trust has five principal grant initiatives, which include the Murdock College Science Research Program, the Murdock College Research Program for Life Sciences, the Exceptional Opportunity Grants Program (designed for regional graduate research universities), the Partners in Science Program (which provides research opportunities for high school science teachers), and the Program to Strengthen the Contemporary American Family.
Barely a year removed from Brigham Young University, Rachel Swim brings a youthful drive and an uncommonly mature focus to her new role as executive director of the GFC Foundation in Orem, Utah. Advancing the mission of the foundation set forth by her father Gaylord Swim, who passed away last year, Miss Swim continues to seek out organizations that build faith in God, strengthen marriage and family, and foster a love and appreciation for America.
One organization that Swim has found effective is Enterprise Mentors International, a nonprofit that provides microcredit loans to poor families in foreign countries in exchange for their participation in courses that teach them basic accounting principles. Over 95 percent of those loans are repaid.
At home, the foundation supports the American Heritage School, a 35-year-old K-8 school in American Fork, Utah, that integrates historical American moral values with a rigorous education. Swim’s father chaired the school’s board for over a decade. At least five other schools in Utah have followed American Heritage’s model.
As the foundation moves forward, Swim hopes to further the foundation’s deep involvement in the causes and the grantees it supports. According to Swim, “unless we give our time in addition to our funds, we don’t make a difference.”
The Schuck Foundation in Colorado Springs recently announced the appointment of Don Griffin as its new president and CEO. Griffin succeeds Stephen Schuck, who will remain chairman of the foundation.
Griffin previously served as executive director of The Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired & Blind in Port Richey, Florida, from 2002 to 2006. He has more than 23 years of senior management experience and has held the chief executive position in several of the country’s top healthcare facilities.
The Schuck Foundation is a private seed funder of several public foundations, each of which is a strong champion of programs that help those in need achieve independence and self-reliance by taking responsibility for their own lives.
Griffin admires the foundation’s “commitment to address societal issues as a change agent. Over the next few years, the Schuck Foundation will seek to develop and fund new programmatic models, based on free market principles, which result in innovative solutions.”
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in Baltimore recently appointed two new program officers, Amy Gross and Michael Kesselman.
Gross joins the Weinberg Foundation from The Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, where she served as Director of Community Initiatives. “I have been able to see the Weinberg Foundation’s work throughout Baltimore, the United States, Israel, and the former Soviet Union in my previous professional positions, and I know the impact that the foundation has in saving lives every day. Access to opportunities to alleviate poverty, whether through food assistance, education, job training, healthcare, housing, or other means is the core of the foundation’s work and I am so pleased to be able to help make a difference in these areas.”
Michael Kesselman brings more than five years’ experience as an independent consultant to nonprofits and foundations, assisting them with program development and evaluation, organizational management, and grants administration. From 1985 to 1999, he was a senior program officer and deputy director for programs at the Koret Foundation in San Francisco. Kesselman looks forward to helping the Weinberg Foundation “move into a new phase of growth and development, where the next generation of trustees and an expanded professional staff will use all they have learned about effective grantmaking to bring about even greater social benefit and positive change for communities suffering from poverty, especially the elderly poor.”
The Philanthropy Roundtable has added three members to its growing staff. Shannon Toronto is the Roundtable’s new chief operating officer. Her experience in the philanthropic sector includes serving as the executive director of the Marriner S. Eccles Foundation, a charitable foundation providing grants throughout the state of Utah. She has also worked as the director of foundation relations at the Leadership Institute and has served as a marketing director for the Waterford Institute (an educational research center). Toronto is a graduate of Brigham Young University, with Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in English, and serves on the Executive Committee of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the BYU Management Society.
Directing the Roundtable’s new higher education breakthrough group is Frederic Fransen. For the past five years, Fransen has served as director of grants for the Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation. From 1996 to 2006, he was also variously a program officer, fellow, and senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., a private operating foundation.
Between 1988 and 1991, Fransen worked in Brussels, Belgium, as a researcher studying European Community and NATO security policy. Fransen has a Ph.D. in Social Thought from the University of Chicago and has written on topics ranging from the origins of the European Community and the interplay between literature and politics to bioethics, markets, and the future of health care policy in China. Fransen’s interests include water sports, reading, and travel; he has visited more than thirty countries on five continents.
Joining the Roundtable in the newly created position of staff assistant is Ashley Hall. Miss Hall is recently graduated from Bucknell University with a Bachelor of Science in business administration and a minor in education. While at Bucknell, she was an active member of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club and the Chi Omega sorority, in which she served as secretary and vice-president.
She also conducted independent research during her study abroad in Northern Ireland and is currently working to publish her findings concerning two public school integration initiatives within Northern Ireland’s religiously segregated school system. Hall has worked with Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law Enforcement Education, where she assisted the curriculum development specialist in organizing Homeland Security programming.
