The William T. Grant Foundation has announced the addition of two new staff members: DWAYNE LINVILLE and MELISSA WOOTEN. Linville will serve as director of grantmaking operations, ensuring that the grants management system meets the needs of applicants, grantees, and staff. He previously was director of operations at the Shine Campaign, which supports clean, distributed energy solutions, and prior to that, worked in grants management and operations at the Ford Foundation. Wooten joins the foundation as a program officer in charge of the William T. Grant Scholars Program and Mentoring grants programs. She has served as senior director of educational equity and associate vice president for academic equity at Rutgers University; prior to that, she was an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where her scholarship focused on how colleges and universities provide supportive, challenging, and resource-rich environments for Black students.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has announced the election of CATHANN A. KRESS as board chair. Kress, who joined the board in 2016, is vice president for agricultural administration and dean of the College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at the Ohio State University, as well as a full professor in the Department of Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership. Kress will serve a one-year term beginning this month, succeeding CELESTE A. CLARK, whose term as chair expired in December.

The Newman’s Own Foundation has announced the election of global public health expert RAFAEL PÉREZ-ESCAMILLA to its board of directors. Pérez-Escamilla is a professor of public health, director of the Office of Public Health Practice, and director of the Global Health Concentration and the Maternal Child Health Promotion Program at the Yale School of Public Health. As principal investigator of the Yale-Griffin CDC Prevention Research Center, he conducts health inequities research to assess the impact of community health workers at improving health outcomes in vulnerable communities.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has announced the appointment of KATHERINE WHEATLE as the inaugural director of its justice and equity grantmaking, effective mid-January. Among other things, she will drive the grantmaking strategy for the remaining $70 million of the foundation’s initial $100 million commitment to anti-Black racism in the United States. Wheatle most recently served as strategy officer for federal policy and racial equity at the Lumina Foundation, where she led efforts to institute more equitable grantmaking practices to increase education attainment and affordability.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced the appointment of RAFAEL MALDONADO as vice president and chief information technology officer, effective January 10. Maldonado previously served as vice president and chief information officer at the National Automobile Dealers Association and as global director of IT for ContourGlobal, a developer and operator of electric power and district heating businesses.

WARD J. 'JACK' TIMKEN has stepped down after more than four decades as president of the Timken Foundation of Canton in Ohio, the Repository reports. Timken, who oversaw the bulk of the approximately six thousand grants the foundation has made since 1934, which total more than $400 million, will be succeeded by ROBERT R. TIMKEN, who has served on numerous local nonprofit boards and is a partner in the Maryland-based Carmony Development LLC. The foundation also elected HENRY H. “KURT” TIMKEN II as treasurer to replace Ambassador W.R. “TIM” TIMKEN, JR., who served in that role for more than forty years. Both Jack Timken and Tim Timken remain trustees of the foundation.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has announced the appointment of DVON WILLIAMS as chief communications officer. Williams previously served as senior director of public relations and celebrity relations at National 4-H Council, where she established a dedicated PR and influencer relations team and held positions at Boys & Girls Clubs of America, where she served as national director of marketing and director of public relations and led the development and execution of BGCA’s Back-to-School campaign.

Independent Sector president and CEO DAN CARDINALI has announced that he will step down by the end of the year. Cardinali, who joined the organization as a board member in 2015, was appointed president and CEO in 2016, and during his tenure, IS launched, among other things, the Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector and the Trust in Civil Society reports and a series of Upswell events focused on the wisdom and lived experience of community-led organizations and communities and leaders of color. “So what’s next for me?” he wrote in a blog post. “After a 35-year career in the sector, I am going to take a sabbatical to focus on interrogating a number of philosophical and theological questions that have guided my life and work. Specifically, I have set up a course of study around common good, justice, and individual/collective flourishing with theologian James Alison.”

The Kansas Health Foundation has announced the addition of two staff members: DREW WILBURNE and JAZMINE ROGERS. Wilburne, who as director of policy and outreach will develop and drive the foundation’s policy agenda and create partnerships at all levels of its policy portfolio, previously was director of intergovernmental affairs at the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. Rogers, who recently joined the foundation as executive assistant, has worked as a community organizer with Progeny KS (a youth program of Destination Innovation) and is a member of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Youth Justice Research Committee.

New Settlement, a nonprofit working to break systemic barriers, advance justice, promote leadership, and strengthen neighborhoods in the Bronx in New York City, has announced the election of BRYAN FRYER to its board. A consulting principal at Grassi’s nonprofit practice, Fryer is responsible for advising nonprofits, associations, and foundations on improving their financial health, mitigating risk, and achieving long-term sustainability. He previously was a partner at a regional public accounting firm and controller for two high-net-worth multi-family offices and an international family-funded educational software company.

Chicago-based United States Artists has announced the appointment of JUDILEE REED as president and CEO, effective May 1. Reed currently serves as program director of creative communities at the William Penn Foundation, where she oversees the arts, culture, and great public spaces grantmaking portfolios in Philadelphia as well as national initiatives. She previously led the Thriving Cultures Program at the Surdna Foundation, where she spearheaded national arts and culture grantmaking across rural, suburban, tribal, and urban communities. She also serves on the boards of Danspace Project in New York and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. JAMIE BENNETT, who has been serving as interim president and CEO, will remain in that role during the transition period.

The Urban Institute has named JANNEKE RATCLIFFE as vice president and head of its Housing Finance Policy Center. Ratcliffe, who joined the organization in 2020 as associate vice president of HFPC, previously held positions at the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Center for American Progress, the University of North Carolina, Self-Help, and GE’s mortgage insurance and mortgage companies. As she takes the helm as vice president, Ratcliffe will lead the center’s prolific research agenda, policy priorities, and projects. She succeeds LAURIE GOODMAN, the center’s founder, who will become HFPC’s first institute fellow and will continue to lead data-driven analyses of housing and housing finance issues. Two housing finance experts, TED TOZER and SARAH GERECKE, also have joined HFPC as non-resident fellows.

And PND notes the passing of CLYDE BELLECOURT, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, at the age of 85. A member of the White Earth Nation, Bellecourt co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968 in Minneapolis to address local issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native people. The organization grew into a national movement and led several major protests in the 1970s, including the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties march to Washington, D.C., and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Bellecourt stepped down from AIM's leadership in the spring of 2020 due to medical issues. As protests against the murder of George Floyd escalated in and around Minneapolis’s Franklin Avenue Urban Indian District, AIM reactivated the patrols that began in 1968 in response to police violence.

PND also notes the passing of LOUIS A. SIMPSON, the Chicago-based investment manager, confidant of Warren Buffett, and philanthropist, at the age of 85. Simpson managed the investment portfolio of Geico, which is owned by Buffett's investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway, for 17 years. According to the Chicago Tribune, he was the only person other than Buffett to control investments made by Berkshire Hathaway. Simpson's philanthropic support for Northwestern University—which he attended for a year before transferring to Ohio Wesleyan University and of which he was a board member—included a $92 million gift to the Feinberg School of Medicine in 2015 for a new biomedical research center. Simpson also supported Princeton University, where he earned a master’s degree in economics, and Artis–Naples, home of the Baker Museum and the Naples Philharmonic.