The New York City-based Ford Foundation has announced the appointment of PHILLIP L. CLAY as senior fellow. Clay, a prominent housing and community development expert, has been a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1975 and finished his term as MIT's chancellor in the summer of 2011.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has announced the appointment of DAVID ELISCO as director of development for its new Film Institute. Elisco, an award-winning writer and producer, has more than twenty years' experience creating and producing science and natural history documentaries for National Geographic Television, the Discovery Channel, and the Public Broadcasting System.

America's Promise Alliance in Washington, D.C., has announced the planned retirement of MARGUERITE W. KONDRACKE, its president and CEO. Kondracke, the longest-serving leader of the organization, is a pioneer in the field of employer-sponsored child care. Earlier in her career, she served as commissioner of human services under Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander and, after Alexander was elected to the U.S. Senate, was staff director for the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families while Alexander chaired it. Kondracke also co-founded Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the largest private provider of employer-sponsored health care, and was nominated by President Obama to the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service. She will remain in office until a successor is named and will subsequently serve as a senior advisor to the organization.

The board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association has announced the extension of DAVID BOHNETT's term as chair as well as the appointment of JENNIFER CHERNICK as a board member. Bohnett, who joined the philharmonic's board in January 2004, spent his professional career in the technology and information services field and now chairs the David Bohnett Foundation, manages a portfolio at Baroda Ventures (his private equity firm), and sits on the boards of several civic, philanthropic, and privately held ventures. Chernick, a classically trained pianist, co-founded iCadenza LLC, a marketing consultancy for the classical music and arts industries, and will begin a JD/MBA program at Stanford University this fall.

In other news, the New York City-based Foundation Center has announced the appointments of PATRICK MCCARTHY and JOHN COLBORN to its board. McCarthy, president and CEO of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has more than twenty-six years of experience in the field of children's well-being, including leadership positions in the State of Delaware's Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services and academic positions in the social work schools of Bryn Mawr College and the University of Southern California. Colborn is vice president of operations at the Ford Foundation, which he joined in 1998 as a program officer; he previously worked at a variety of nonprofit organizations, including most recently the Reinvestment Fund.