Ford’s Walker Named to Independent Sector Board

 

Independent Sector members elected six new members to the Board of Directors and re-elected three members. The elections were held as part of the Annual Business Meeting at the 2014 IS National Conference in Seattle, Wash. Two new officers began their terms: Neil Nicoll, president and CEO of YMCA of the USA, who began his term as Independent Sector board chair; and Steven McCormick, co-founder of the Earth Genome Project, who began his term as vice chair. Returning officers include Secretary Kelvin Taketa, president and CEO of the Hawai’i Community Foundation, and Treasurer Lorie Slutsky, president of The New York Community Trust. Jeffrey Bradach, managing partner and co-founder of the Bridgespan Group, who also serves on the board, was named at-large executive committee member.

 

The new directors beginning service in 2015 are:

 

Three current board members have been re-elected:

 

Sonya Campion brings a successful 26-year career in fundraising to the field of philanthropy through her work as Vice President and Principal of The Collins Group, a regional consulting firm. Through her work with The Collins Group, Sonya worked with over 100 organizations and provided counsel for 25 capital campaigns ($500M+ total) to help change the landscape of the non-profit sector. As a longtime leader in the Association of Fundraising Professionals, she founded a series of international symposiums in partnership with Canadian AFP chapters. In 2008, she founded AFP’s annual Major Gift Symposium in order to elevate the field to prepare for the new wave of philanthropic donors. Along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sonya co-chaired the launch of the Northwest affiliate of Funders Together, a national network of foundations supporting strategic and effective grantmaking and advocacy to end homelessness. In addition, she co-founded Philanthropy Northwest’s Capacity Building Learning Circle, a network of 70+ northwest foundations committed to strengthening the non-profit sector. In 2009, Sonya was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Northwest Development Officer’s Association for her professional leadership in the field of development and philanthropy. In 2011, Tom and Sonya Campion received the Association of Fundraising Professional’s award for outstanding philanthropists. Sonya serves on the board of directors for Seattle-King-Snohomish County YWCA, Whitman College Board of Overseers and Funders Together to End Homelessness. In addition, she recently served as co-chair for the Methow Land Conservancy’s Capital Campaign, exceeding their $20.3M goal. She holds a B.A. in psychology with a minor in political science from Whitman College.

 

Dan Cardinali has led Communities In Schools since 2004. Under his leadership, the organization has developed and embraced an evidence-based model of integrated student service provision and has launched a national growth strategy to increase the organization’s impact on improving public education. Cardinali’s background as a community organizer has helped the organization continue its steady and measured growth, establish its voice in national education policy debates, and launch an organization-wide quality improvement campaign. Cardinali is a 2007 Annie E. Casey Children and Families Fellow. He also currently serves as a trustee for America’s Promise, and as chairman of the board of directors of Peace First. Cardinali is a board member of The Harwood Institute of Public Innovation and Child Trends. In May 2011 Dan Cardinali was appointed by President Barack Obama to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Trained as a community organizer in Guadalajara, Mexico, Cardinali served on a team organizing a “squatter” community of 120,000 to secure land rights, running water and public education. He returned to Washington, D.C., to receive a one-year research fellowship at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. At Partners of the Americas, Cardinali coordinated its leadership training program, the International Fellowship in Community Development. Before assuming his current position, Cardinali served as executive vice president of Field Operations at Communities In Schools. Cardinali holds a Bachelor’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a Master’s degree in philosophy from Fordham University.

 

Jim Gibbons is the president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, an internationally-recognized leading social enterprise of independent, community-based agencies in the United States and Canada as well as a presence in 14 other countries. Before coming to Goodwill in 2008, Gibbons served as the president and CEO of National Industries for the Blind (NIB), a nonprofit organization that works to enhance economic opportunities and professional development for people who are blind. Prior to NIB, Gibbons was the president and CEO of Campus Wide Access Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AT&T, where he held various leadership positions in operations, product management, and mergers and acquisition. Jim is a member of the National Workforce Solutions Advisory Board and serves on the board of SourceAmerica. He is also a member of the World Presidents’ Organization and chairs the executive committee for Leadership 18. He has served on the Harvard Business School Alumni Association Board of Directors and Executive Committee. Gibbons has received several awards and recognitions for his work, including the 2014 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from Purdue University, the 2010 National Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged and the 2010 SmartCEO EcoCEO award for organizational commitment to the environment. Gibbons was recently appointed by President Obama as a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions. Gibbons earned his B.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and a M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was the first blind person to graduate with a Harvard MBA.

 

Ron Kagan has been Director of the Detroit Zoological Society since 1992. He has authored numerous articles in journals, encyclopedias and books and has also created, co-wrote and co-produced award-winning documentaries. Ron has led the development of unique and award-winning programs and facilities including a Gorilla Conservation Research Center, a Wildlife Interpretive Gallery (dedicated to exploring the relationship between humans and animals over time and in different cultures), the National Amphibian Conservation Center, the Arctic Ring of Life, and the Wild Adventure Simulator (a motion-based cabin simulator that builds empathy for other species as people experience the world of animals through their eyes). Ron has served on and/or chaired the Metro Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, Michigan Museum Association, Michigan Nature Conservancy, International Council of Museums, American Association of Museums, and the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Board of Regents.

 

Larry Kramer is president of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, Mr. Kramer served as Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Dean of Stanford Law School. During his tenure, he spearheaded significant educational reforms, pioneering a new model of multidisciplinary legal studies, enlarging the clinical education program, revamping to foster a public service ethos, and developing the international law program to support a growing emphasis on globalization in legal practice. His teaching and scholarly interests include American legal history, constitutional law, federalism, separation of powers, the federal courts, conflict of laws, and civil procedure. At the start of his career, Mr. Kramer served as law clerk to U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Second Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. Following his clerkships, Mr. Kramer served as professor of law at the University of Chicago and University of Michigan law schools. He joined the faculty of New York University School of Law in 1994, where he served as Associate Dean for Research and Academics and Russell D. Niles Professor of Law until leaving for Stanford in 2004. Until joining Stanford, he also served as a special consultant for Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP. Mr. Kramer is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute. He serves on the board of directors of Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit organization that helps advance public interest law, and the ClimateWorks Foundation. Mr. Kramer received an A.B. in Psychology and Religious Studies from Brown University, graduating magna cum laude in 1980, and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, magna cum laude, in 1984. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review.

 

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation. The foundation is based in the United States and operates worldwide, with ten offices in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America. For more than two decades Darren has been a leader in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, starting with a local community and economic development initiative in Harlem, then shifting to global work on an array of social justice issues, including human rights, urban development, free expression, and more. His career in the social sector followed a decade in international law and finance. Darren served as the foundation’s vice president for Education, Creativity and Free Expression, where he shaped more than $140 million in annual grant-making around the world, covering areas as diverse as media and journalism, arts and culture, sexuality and reproductive health and rights, educational access and opportunity, and religion. He was a driving force behind initiatives such as JustFilms, one of the largest documentary film funds in the world, and public-private collaborations such as ArtPlace, which supports cultural development in cities and rural areas in America. He also oversaw the foundation’s regional programming in four offices based in Africa and the Middle East. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation, Darren was vice president for foundation initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he led both domestic and global programs. He also supervised Rockefeller’s foreign offices, initiated new programming in urban development and arts and culture, and led its post-Katrina New Orleans Recovery Program. Darren entered the nonprofit sector as chief operating officer for the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a community development organization in Harlem. Darren began his career in 1986 at the international law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. In 1988, he joined the Union Bank of Switzerland, where he spent seven years in the capital markets division. After leaving UBS, Darren worked for a year as a full-time volunteer at The Children’s Storefront, an elementary school serving low-income families in Harlem. He is a 1982 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin and its School of Law in 1986. He is a member of the boards of the Arcus Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Friends of the High Line, the New York City Ballet, and the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.