Diana Andrew
The Healing Trust
The Health Trust welcomed Diana Andrew as the Office and Events Manager. She oversees the operation and maintenance of facilities, manages event logistics, and provides administrative support to the board and CEO. Her 10 years of professional experience include grant review, project management, nonprofit program development, and training. Ms. Andrew also founded Sheeco, a sustainability consulting firm helping to reduce the environmental impact of events.
Contact: Jennifer Oldham at 615.284.8271 or jennifer.oldham@healingtrust.org.
Dr. Helen DuPlessis
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Helen DuPlessis, MD, MPH, an accomplished physician executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience, has been appointed to serve on Blue Shield of California Foundation’s board of trustees. As part of the nine-person board, Dr. DuPlessis will help to ensure that the foundation continues to fulfill its mission and vision. She begins a three-year term in January.
Improving the lives of children, in particular addressing exposure to trauma, such as domestic violence, is core to the foundation’s mission, which is to build lasting, equitable solutions that make California the healthiest state and end domestic violence.
Dr. DuPlessis, a principal with Health Management Associates and a member of the Blue Shield of California board of trustees, was previously a pediatrician and senior advisor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities. In addition to her time on the board, Dr. DuPlessis has served on multiple local, state, and national committees and additional boards, including nonprofit school health partnerships, professional organizations, quality improvement organizations, National Children’s Study National Advisory Committees, and other health programs in California. She was the first permanent chief medical officer of L.A. Care Health Plan.
Dr. DuPlessis has also served as Chief Medical Officer for a large network of federally qualified health centers in south Los Angeles, California where she built a quality improvement infrastructure, enhanced performance improvement revenues, instituted and certified patient-centered medical home model, and significantly expanded staffing and service scope.
Dr. Icela Pelayo, Jonathan Jayes-Green, and Raul Moas
Hispanics in Philanthropy
Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) welcomed new board members to the HIP Familia and its collective corazón. Its newest trustees, Dr. Icela Pelayo, Jonathan Jayes-Green, and Raul Moas are bold and talented leaders in their fields and will be great assets to HIP. They have demonstrated their commitment to HIP’s mission of increasing Latino leadership, influence, and equity by leveraging philanthropic resources across the Americas.
Icela Pelayo is a Program Officer in the Office of the President at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) working on the foundation’s efforts on racial equity and community engagement to support thriving children, working families and equitable communities. She serves as a strategic partner to community leaders of multi-sector, community collaborations implementing Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation efforts and leads the strategy and coordination for WKKF’s National Day of Racial Healing. She is also a former HIP Lider.
Jonathan Jayes-Green, Vice President of Programs at Marguerite Casey Foundation is an organizer, orator, strategist, and believer. They are the former National Latinx Outreach Director for the Elizabeth Warren for President Campaign, where they focused on connecting the movement and the campaign in service of building big, structural change for Latinx and immigrant communities. They bring a deep rooted expertise in government as well as immigrant justice and multi-racial LGBTQA+ issues.
Raul Moas is the Miami Program Director at Knight Foundation where he leads the foundation’s initiatives in building a more dynamic and robust community of entrepreneurs and startups. Mr. Moas is passionate about Greater Miami and deeply involved in making his community a better place. He brings a wealth of investment and startup experience and knowledge to HIP.
In addition, Efrain Escobedo has accepted the role of Chair of the Hispanics in Philanthropy board of directors. After serving five years on the board, HIP will benefit from his energy, knowledge, and expertise. Mary Skelton Roberts has led the HIP board for the past eight years, three of which as HIP’s Chair. Ms. Roberts has steered the organization through ups and downs, always centering its work and pushing it forward. Ms. Roberts has taken on the role of Ex-Officio for a year, to ease the transition and will forever be a part of the HIP familia.
Christine Switzer and Hector Mujica joined the Executive Committee. Ms. Switzer will join as Secretary and Mr. Mujica will take on the position of At-Large Officer. Roy Cosme will serve as Vice Chair and Glenda Monterroza will join the board and represent the Lideres Alumni Network.
Finally, HIP has a newly formed Investment Committee chaired by Tony Mestres. This committee will be composed of board members and three external investment experts: Anabel Giron at The California Wellness Foundation, Manuel Monasterio at UBS, and Eli Velazquez at The Investors of Color Network.
Betsy Paine and Mike Devlin
Endowment for Health
Betsy Paine, Senior Staff Attorney for the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program of New Hampshire (CASA), has been appointed Endowment for Health board chair, replacing Mike Ostrowski whose term concluded. Ms. Paine previously worked for 21 years at The New Hampshire Circuit Court as a Domestic Violence Specialist and grant coordinator.
Mike Devlin, most recently Director of Grants and Initiatives at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation has joined the Endowment for Health board. In addition to his grantmaking expertise, Mr. Devlin brings deep experience in healthy food funding initiatives as well as public health expertise.
For a complete list of board members, click here.
Contact: Karen Ager at 603.228.2448 or kager@endowmentforhealth.org
Mac Sims
Cone Health Foundation
Cone Health Foundation has added a new member, Mac Sims, to its board of directors. Mr. Sims is president of East Greensboro NOW (EGN), a position he has held since 1997 when the organization was founded. Prior to EGN, Mr. Sims worked for Weaver Cooke Construction Company, LLC, serving in a variety of roles that included: commercial and residential real estate development, commercial and multi-family real estate management, business development manager and marketing manager for construction. He serves on several local advisory boards and boards of directors including Salvation Army, YMCA, and Wellspring Retirement Community.
The foundation also elected the following board officers:
- Chair: Kim Gatling, Partner, Fox Rothschild
- Vice-Chair: Cindy Thompson, Executive Director, Boundless Impact
- Secretary: John Cross Partner, Brooks Pierce
- Treasurer: Wilson Lester, Managing Partner, Partners in Equity
For more information about the foundation, click here.
Contact: Susan Shumaker at 336.832.9555 or susan.shumaker@conehealth.com.
Edgar Villanueva and Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has elected two new trustees to its board, effective January 26, 2022: Edgar Villanueva and Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson.
Edgar Villanueva, MHA, is a noted author, activist, and expert on social justice philanthropy. He is founder and principal of the Decolonizing Wealth Project (DWP) and author of Decolonizing Wealth. The 2018 bestselling book, now in its second edition, calls for a modernization of philanthropic practice to address daunting racial wealth gaps and inequality in the nation. The book led him to establish DWP and its accompanying fund, Liberated Capital, to increase resources to Black, Indigenous, and other people-of-color communities. Mr. Villanueva advises organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to global and national philanthropies and nonprofits on advancing racial equity and healing.
Rev. Starsky Wilson, D.Min., is President and CEO of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) and CDF Action Council. Since 1973, CDF has worked to advance child-centered public policies. From 2011 through 2020, Mr. Wilson was President and CEO of Deaconess Foundation, a faith-based philanthropy for child well-being and racial justice in St. Louis, Missouri. During most of his time at Deaconess, he also served as pastor of St. John’s Church, a multiracial congregation in the city. Under his leadership, Deaconess constructed and established the Deaconess Center for Child Well-Being, a community action tank engaging more than 15,000 citizens annually. After the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown, Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri, Mr. Wilson was named Co-Chair of the Ferguson Commission, which released the ‘Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity’ Report, that called for sweeping changes in policing and the courts, and for improved child well-being systems and economic mobility. Mr. Wilson is Board Chair for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and Chair of the Forum for Theological Exploration. He also serves on boards for CDF Action Council, Duke Divinity School, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, and Sojourners.
Aaron Werki
Weinberg Foundation
The Weinberg Foundation promoted Aaron Merki to Chief Program Officer.
Mr. Merki has led the program team in distributing approximately $130 million in annual grants, all focused on improving the lives of people experiencing poverty in the United States and Israel. Under his leadership, the foundation has prioritized strategic and collaborative approaches to grantmaking focused on achieving measurable impacts within the communities the foundation serves. He has also overseen the streamlining of its grantmaking to four core focus areas—Housing, Health, Jobs, and Education—enabling it to focus greater resources on select funding priorities and initiatives.
Mr. Merki previously served as a Program Director at the foundation and was responsible for grantmaking focused on aging and older adult services, which is now included under its Housing and Health portfolios. In that role, he helped lead the expansion of Housing Upgrades to Benefit Seniors in Baltimore City, Maryland, a collaboration of nonprofits, city government, and philanthropy to enable low-income older adult homeowners to remain independent by providing home modifications and repairs, occupational therapy, and wraparound services. To date, the foundation has invested $9.3 million in this initiative, which has enabled more than 2,500 older adults to age in place.
Before coming to the Weinberg Foundation, Mr. Merki served as the executive director of FreeState Justice, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of Maryland’s LGBTQ citizens through legal services and advocacy. He also worked as a corporate litigator at Venable LLP where he represented a range of Fortune 500 companies, in addition to smaller businesses and individuals. Mr. Merki clerked for the Honorable Judge Susan K. Gauvey of the United States District Court for Maryland. Other past and present leadership roles include service on the boards of Grantmakers in Aging, the Public Justice Center, The Journey Home, and FreeState Justice.
To learn more, click here.
Contact: 410.654.8500.