Dwayne C. Proctor, ABFE Board Chair, has been promoted to Team Director for the Childhood Obesity team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  He is currently Senior Program Officer of Childhood Obesity.  He will officially begin in that position on January 1, 2009.   

 

KC Burton, ABFE Board Vice Chair, has accepted the position of Deputy Director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a non-profit made up primarily of faith-based organizations that invests member funds in corporations to encourage socially responsible practices and policies.  KC was previously with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and will begin with ICCR on January 5, 2009.

 

Trista Harris, ABFE Connecting Leaders Fellow (2006-2007), has been named Executive Director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice in Minneapolis.   

 

ABFE member Nicole Jones has been named Associate Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  

 

Greg Roberts, formerly with DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation has been named President of The Muhammed Ali Center.

 
Please send promotion and career announcements to slyons@abfe.org.

 

"By passing this act, lawmakers have taken a significant step toward improving the lives of the most vulnerable youth in our nation," said William C. Bell, President and CEO of Casey Family Programs and an ABFE Board Member.  "This legislation will encourage more relatives to care for children in familiar surroundings while connecting young people to critical services that everyone needs to have a bright future."

 

Casey, a national foundation that has long backed the reforms, has advocated for such changes as part of the foundation's 2020 Strategy, which aims to safely reduce the number of children in foster care by 50 percent over the next 12 years and to reinvest savings from that effort to strengthen the child welfare system and improve education, employment and mental health support for children in foster care.

 

Nicole Taylor, President and CEO of the East Bay Community Foundation, shares her idea for reforming philanthropy with KALW's, a local radio station in Northern California.
Hear the interview...

Council of New Jersey Grantmakers (NJG) Members Establish

 

Philanthropy has played a vital role in Newark for decades. To harness grantmakers' interests and foster greater effectiveness and impact, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Schumann Fund for New Jersey, Turrell Fund, and Sagner Family Foundation came together in 2007, through CNJG, to create a philanthropic Liaison for the City.  
Read more...  

ABFE's Media Initiative 

As part of ABFE's Media Initiative launched at our annual meeting at the Council on Foundations 2008 conference, we continue the discussion of media and its impact on the Black community; and more precisely, how philanthropy is in a unique position to respond. 

 

In December we hosted Media and Philanthropy, an event which was co-sponsored by Grantmakers in Film + Media and New England Blacks in Philanthropy.  

 

In an earlier interview with ABFE, Dori Maynard who is President of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, responded to member questions.  Read Dori's interview with ABFE.
 

Stay tuned for more of ABFE's Media Initiative in 2009.  
 

Carrolle Perry Devonish is ABFE's 17th James A. Joseph Lecturer. Ms. Devonish is the Executive Director of the Anguilla Community Foundation in the British West Indies and was the first to organize ABFE's annual James A. Joseph Lecture. Her lecture, A Philanthropic Safari, is available at www.abfe.org.
  
Wendy Lewis Jackson is ABFE's  2008 Emerging Leader in Philanthropy. Ms. Jackson is a Program Officer at the Kresge Foundation.
 
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is the recipient of ABFE's 2008 Institutional Award for Philanthropic Leadership.
 
We thank ABFE's 2008 Lecturer and Award recipients for their service, leadership and commitment to philanthropy and ABFE's mission.

Reminder: In January we will send a call for nominations for the 2009 James A. Joseph Lecturer, the Emerging Leader in Philanthropy Award and the Institutional Award for Philanthropic Leadership.  Please think about who in your network you would like to nominate., and visit our website to learn more about the Lecture and Awards. 

Source: The JEHT Foundation

In Challenging Times...

"Weak organizations cut 15% across the board - strong organizations take the time to conduct a line-by-line budget and program assessment and use a scapel to strategcially cut based on which areas are most in-line with the organization's mission, and which reflect necessary, key core services.  This is more difficult and requires more thought and effort but is the smarter, more strategic way to address unavoidable budget cuts and would place the organization in a better position to maintain its value and survive these economic times than a cut across the board.  Protecting 100% of something is always preferable and more strategic than maintaining 85% of everything."
Source: Johsua Mintz - Cavanaugh, Hagan, Pierson & Mintz
 

In the spirit of giving, thinking and doing on behalf of those in the Black community who need our most urgent attention, ABFE leaves you - the foot soldiers of philanthropy - with these thoughts as we exit 2008 and enter 2009.

 

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.  Maya Angelou

The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.  Booker T. Washington

None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.  We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.  Thurgood Marshall

 

 

ABFE's mission is to promote effective and responsive philanthropy in Black communities.   As the first official affinity group of the Council on Foundations, ABFE is the champion of diverse leadership in philanthropy. Progress is defined by a substantial increase in the number of Blacks as leaders and emerging leaders within the philanthropic field. Today, ABFE counts among its members some of the most influential staff, trustees, and donors of grantmaking organizations who are intimately involved in shaping the focus, decision-making, and response of foundations toward Black communities. Please visit our website at www.abfe.org.