► Newsmakers

Newsmakers for May 2002

Nonprofits

The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), run by Jack Calhoun, received a $6.2 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to support faith-based social service delivery. The mission: to establish a Faith and Service Technical Education Network (FASTEN) to identify and promote faith-based services to the poor.

Although NCPC is best known for its McGruff the Crime Dog campaign, its work is expanding outside the strict boundaries of crime prevention. A major reason for Pew’s grant, Calhoun says, is the NCPC’s work with the Corporation for National and Community Service to expand its VISTA and Senior Corps to include faith-based groups.

“Our philosophy has always been to ensure safe and caring communities,” he says. “This is just looking at it from another slant.” Baylor University’s School of Sociology and Religion in Waco, Texas, will be on the team with NCPC, developing a resource that designates promising practices. Contact: (202) 466-6272, www.ncpc.org.

The YMCA has named Mark Johnson as director of national philanthropic activities. Johnson has moved up through the ranks of the Chicago-based organization, most recently serving as executive director of the YMCA’s Silver Bay Association for Christian Conferences and Training, in upstate New York. One of Johnson’s first tasks will be to raise funds for the development of a global peace and conflict resolution center in Jerusalem, the only foreign city whose YMCA is directly affiliated with the 2,141 American YMCAs. Contact: (312) 977-0031, www.ymca.net.

Former Search Institute COO Andrew Munoz was hired in April as vice president to the Boston-based City Year, headed by CEO Alan Khazei and President Michael Brown. Munoz’s first order of business: a $2 million “evidence of impact study” of City Year projects, the money for which was ponied up by the Bermuda-based Atlantic Philanthropies. City Year also added former Miami-based Knight Foundation program officer Julia Van as director of foundation relations.

Contact: (617) 927-2500, www.cityyear.org.

Brave Kids, a website and online club based in San Francisco for children with chronic or life-threatening illnesses, named Angelika Geiger as COO. Geiger comes to Brave Kids (founded in 1999) from Entango, an online fund-raising service-provider for nonprofits, where she was chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Contact: (415) 561-2393, www.bravekids.org.

At Child Trends, Bonnie Wahiba has moved up to director of external relations. Wahiba is a long-time veteran of youth services, having served as a program coordinator at the Family Impact Seminar under Theodora Ooms (now at the Center for Law and Social Policy) and a program officer when Len Stern was executive director of the National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations from 1983 to 1990. Contact: Child Trends, (202) 362-5580, www.childtrends.org.

Feds

After 11 months of waiting, longtime child pornography foe J. Robert Flores was confirmed in April as administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJ). Terry Donahue, President Bush’s acting OJJ chief since August, was rewarded for his servitude with a new assignment as special assistant in the office of Assistant Attorney General Deborah Daniels. Donahue will oversee development of new federal partnerships. Contact: (301) 519-6208, www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.

Under the terms of what she calls a “merged federal contract,” former Volunteers of America program director Kim Helfgott has become deputy director of the National Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse. Under her five-year contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one part of her job will be to consolidate the two information sources into one clearinghouse. Both clearinghouses are part of Wade
Horn’s Administration for Children and Families and run under contract by the Fairfax, Va.-based Caliber Associates. Contact: Caliber (800) 394-3366, http://www.calib.com.

Indiana University professor David Reingold will join the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNS) to head its recently reorganized Department of Research and Policy Development, which CNS chief Leslie Lenkowsky calls “the corporation’s in-house think tank.” The department, focused now on quality and accountability issues for AmeriCorps, VISTA, National Senior Service Corps and Learn and Serve America, will have its hands full monitoring growth and effectiveness as the Bush administration begins to implement its ambitious plans for the USA Freedom Corps. Contact: (202) 606-5000, www.cns.gov.

Foundations

Larry Meyer has moved up to vice president after seven years as communications director at the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (assets: $1.9 billion). Heidi Rettig, a former Urban Institute researcher, and Katherine Loflin, former executive director of the Family Support Network for Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in North Carolina, move to Knight as content program officers. They will work under John Bare, director of program development and evaluation. Contact: (305) 908-2600, www.knightfdn.org.

The New York City-based Irene Diamond Fund has named Jane Silver as its executive director. Silver has been working on AIDS issues in Washington since 1987, when she became the chief of the D.C. Department of Human Service’s first Office of AIDS Activities. She most recently served as vice president of public policy for the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Contact: (212) 838-9525.

The California Endowment (assets: $3.5 billion) in Woodland Hills recently filled two key positions. Health policy expert Carolina Reyes, wife of U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), is now vice president of evaluation and planning. Reyes is working with Alicia Lara, vice president of programs, to further develop the 5-year-old endowment’s health-related grant-making efforts in underserved California communities. Now directing mental health activities for Reyes and Lara is Mary Rainwater. Rainwater was executive director of the Los Angeles Free Clinic for 11 years before joining the endowment as a consultant for its $24 million, 46-grant Special Opportunity in Mental Health Funding program. Contact: (818) 703-3311, http://www.calendow.org.

Pia Saengswang, a former program manager at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, was named associate director of the 3-year-old Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation.

Saengswang comes to the foundation on the heels of a $300 million commitment from founder and L.A. civic leader Eli Broad, who established his namesake foundation in 1999 with a $100 million contribution. The foundation’s mission is to “dramatically improve K-12 urban public education through better governance, management and labor relations.” Contact: (310) 954-5057, www.broadfoundation.org.

Diane Brigham, former head of education at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is the new executive director at the Ryman-Carroll Foundation across town. Ryman provides scholarships for young artists around the country to study drawing at its L.A. center. Contact: (213) 629-2787, www.ryman.org.

The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund in San Francisco has named Jose Montano as program officer for children and youth. Montano comes to Haas from Community Partners in Los Angeles, where he was senior program director. Contact: (415) 856-1400, http://haasjr.org.

The Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation elected Leo Morton to its youth development board last month. The senior vice president for Fortune 100 energy mogul Aquila, Morton is also a board member for INROADS, a nonprofit career development group for youth in 48 U.S. cities and Mexico City. Kauffman also named retired Ernst & Young partner Michael Morrissey as board chairman. Morrissey sat on Kauffman’s youth development board for a year before being elected to the foundation board in 1999. Contact: (816) 932-1000, www.emkf.org.

The Philadelphia-based William Penn Foundation (assets: $1.2 billion) elected national youth policy expert Thomas McKenna to its board of directors. McKenna, who served as CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America from 1985 to 1999, directs a MacArthur Foundation-funded juvenile justice project at the Center for the Study of Youth Policy. He is also a part-time faculty member with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work and the Fells School of Government. Contact: (215) 988-1830, www.wpennfdn.org.

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