KELLY SUZANNE SAULSBERRY and IRENA JUANIZA (she/her) have joined the staff of Woods Fund Chicago as program officers. A native of Chicago, Saulsberry previously served as director of policy and outreach for the City of Chicago's Commission on Human Relations and, before that, as deputy policy director in the office of former mayor Rahm Emanuel. Juaniza has worked as an organizer on various racial and economic justice issues, both locally and nationally, including police brutality in Oakland, affordable housing in the Bronx, and welfare reauthorization at the federal level. Her early community work with young people includes developing one of Chicago’s first restorative justice programs, commonly known as peer juries.

The fund also announced the addition of LOURDES TORRES to its board of directors. Dr. Torres is the St. Vincent de Paul Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies and Critical Ethnic Studies at DePaul University, editor of the journal Latino Studies, and co-series editor of the Global Latin/o American Series published by the University of Ohio Press. She currently is working on a history of LLEGO, The National Latino/a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Organization, which operated from 1987 to 2004, and is researching the use of Spanish in the Chicago area.

The Kresge Foundation in Troy, Michigan, has announced that TOSHA TABRON is joining the foundation as a social investment officer focused on Detroit. A native of Detroit, Tabron comes to Kresge from Invest Detroit, where she was senior vice president of lending. She previously served as vice president of Detroit philanthropy at J.P. Morgan Chase and as a vice president of community development banking at Bank of America. The foundation also announced the promotion of JOE EVANS to the position of portfolio director and social investment officer. Evans joined Kresge in 2014 as its first portfolio manager after ten years of consulting with some of the nation’s largest philanthropies on their program-related investment portfolios. In his expanded role, he will manage a team of three that provides oversight to the foundation’s active program-related investment and guarantee portfolio, as well as generate and close new investments that align with the Kresge Environment Program’s strategies.

The board of directors of the California Wellness Foundation has announced the election of PAMELA SIMMS-MACKEY as chair, TERENCE MULLIGAN as treasurer, and ANGELICA SALAS as secretary. Simms-Mackey is the chair of Pediatrics and chief of Graduate Medical Education at Alameda Health System. Mulligan is the chief executive officer of the Napa Valley Community Foundation. And Salas is the executive director of CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

Following an extensive national search, the board of directors of Philanthropy New York has announced KATHRYN O’NEAL-DUNHAM as the organization’s new chief executive officer. O’Neal-Dunham joined PNY as chief operating officer in 2014 and has led its internal capacity building work and programming in support of more racially equitable organizational cultures and practices. Before joining the organization, she held leadership roles at the United Way of New York City, the Macquarie Group Foundation, and Inwood House. O’Neal-Dunham succeeds Ronna Brown, who served as the organization's president for thirteen years and announced to the board early in 2020 that she would be stepping down at the end of the year.

The END Fund, the only private philanthropic initiative solely dedicated to ending the most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), has announced the appointment of MOSES JOHN BOCKARIE as a board member and CAROLINE KARATU as its new vice president of programs. Bockarie holds MSc and PhD degrees from the Liverpool school of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom and serves as the regional director for Africa for the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). Prior to her appointment, Karutu, whose expertise includes identifying and strengthening health service delivery gaps and building partnerships with governments and local communities for sustainable solutions, served as chief of party for the USAID-funded Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services in Eastern Uganda (RHITES-E) Project.

The Schott Foundation for Public Education in New York City has announced MELISSA DAAR CARVAJAL as its new communications director. The founder of San Francisco-based MDC Network, a communications and branding consulting firm, Carvajal has worked with The Early Learning Lab, Oakland Literacy Coalition, SF Bay Area Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, and the Packard, Thrive, and Silicon Valley Community foundations, among others. Earlier in her career, she held senior positions at the Stuart Foundation, Fenton Communications, and Full Court Press. 

And PND notes the passing of THOMAS BAKER, the first paid executive director of the Buffalo-based John R. Oishei Foundation, at the age of 77. Baker joined the foundation, which had operated for fifty-five years under a different name, making millions of dollars in unsolicited and anonymous gifts, after thirty-three years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, the final twenty as partner and then managing partner for the Buffalo office. During his decade as executive director (1997-2007), the foundation, which today has $283 million in assets, paid out nearly $120 million – including a grant of $100,000 that helped to create the High Street Corridor, the original name for what would become the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Baker went on to serve as the first chair of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority and as a board member of First Niagara Financial Group Inc. and its banking subsidiary, First Niagara Bank N.A., before retiring in 2015.