This year’s list favors emerging voices and includes leaders who are taking on new roles, people who are redefining the future, and people who are leading in stormy times.
Brenda Solórzano, Alex Soros, Susie Buffett, JD Vance, and Jim Shelton
What do an Oklahoma senator, a billionaire’s daughter, and a Dallas-based champion of immigrants’ rights have in common? All three are likely to make headlines in the year to come. They are among 16 people in the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 2025 edition of “People to Watch” in the nonprofit and donor communities.
This year’s list includes a few household names, but it favors emerging voices that could step into the spotlight in 2025 or the years to come. The roster is organized in line with three main themes: leaders who are taking on new roles; people who are redefining the future, and people who are leading in stormy times.
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What do an Oklahoma senator, a billionaire’s daughter, and a Dallas-based champion of immigrants’ rights have in common? All three are likely to make headlines in the year to come. They are among 16 people in the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s 2025 edition of “People to Watch” in the nonprofit and donor communities.
This year’s list includes a few household names, but it favors emerging voices that could step into the spotlight in 2025 or the years to come. The roster is organized in line with three main themes: leaders who are taking on new roles, people who are redefining the future, and people who are leading in stormy times.
Rising Into New Roles
Alex Soros, chair of Open Society Foundations. This landmark philanthropic organization has been recalibrating for the past few years, with Alex in 2023 succeeding his father, George, as chair, and Binaifer Nowrojee, an Open Society veteran, becoming president in 2024. Key priorities such as human rights remain, but climate is emerging quickly as a top priority. With Alex Soros already sharing perspectives on everything from wellness to Ukraine via social media, his voice could become one of the most prominent on progressive issues in 2025.
JD Vance, the 50thU.S. vice president.As a Republican senator from Ohio, Vance repeatedly took aim at university endowments and what he regarded as problematic, left-leaning priorities at the nation’s largest foundations. His bills calling for faster payouts and new taxes never reached a floor vote, but as vice president, he will have more clout. Vance will be in a prime position to shape policy debates, says Michael Hartmann, senior fellow at the Capital Research Center, a conservative research group.
Susie Buffett, daughter of 94-year-old billionaire Warren Buffett. Her father’s estate plan puts Susie and her two brothers, Howard and Peter, in charge of the charitable trust that will inherit his more than $140 billion fortune after he dies. What will the Buffett siblings do? Susie Buffett’s prolific giving to children’s groups and the Omaha region may offer clues. Beyond that, “when the time comes, we will do our best to listen and respond,” she told the Flatwater Free Press a few months ago.
Jim Shelton, new CEO of Blue Meridian. Focused on cradle-to-career economic development, Shelton brings data mastery, a knack for community listening, and plenty of phrase-turning flair to the job. “When people ask me ‘What gives you hope?’” he says, “I reply ‘Texas.’ Polarization there is extraordinarily high. Rhetoric is red hot. But in cities like Dallas, they’re doing deep work and making progress anyway.”
Brenda Solórzano, the new CEO of the $4 billion California Endowment, with a vital new mission. Uprooted from her own home in Altadena, Calif., by this month’s southern California wildfires, Solórzano — who previously led the Headwaters Foundation in Montana — is speaking out about what philanthropy must do in the face of this humanitarian crisis. Her message at a recent public forum: “Listen to the people and what they need. This is going to be a long journey. Be here. Stay here. And don’t forget about us.”
Redefining the Future
Chronicle Illustration
James Lankford, Holly Welch Stubbing, Cecilia Conrad, Ken Griffin, and Mike Kubzansky,
Cecilia Conrad, CEO, Lever for Change. When America’s largest donors want to widen their giving circles — and consider organizations they barely know — Conrad is the expert they call. She and her team have organized more than a dozen open-call competitions to help big names such as MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, and the MacArthur Foundation find winners. More growth is likely in 2025, spurred by Conrad’s insistence that these contests help open opportunities even for nonprofits that don’t win the competitions.
Ken Griffin,Griffin Catalyst. Tapping into a hedge-fund fortune estimated at $46 billion, Griffin is a major funder in areas ranging from charter-school networks to overhauling America’s organ-donation system. Conservative in his principles — and a leader of last year’s donor revolt against Harvard, his alma mater — Griffin favors refocusing history instruction on Western society’s achievements rather than its shortcomings. Tech-related projects, including new uses of A.I., are likely on his horizon; in a Milken Institute session last year, Griffin cited both education and health care as fields where he’s “really excited” about computing advances.
James Lankford, Republican senator from Oklahoma. As far back as 2017, Lankford has fought for legislation to increase ordinary taxpayers’ opportunities to claim deductions for charitable giving. Those efforts fell short, but with a GOP majority in the Senate and his own seat on the Finance Committee, Lankford — a former nonprofit leader with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and a large youth camp — may stand a better chance. “I’m very proud of how many Americans actually give to nonprofits,” he recently told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “But we want people to actually be able to give a little bit more.”
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Holly Welch Stubbing, president and CEO of the National Philanthropic Trust, one of the largest sponsors of donor-advised funds and a standard-bearer for the field. DAFs originated in the 1930s; today they are a prominent part of the philanthropic landscape. Stubbing joined fast-growing NPT last year after leading an emergency relief nonprofit and serving as a top officer with the juggernaut Foundation for the Carolinas. While critics worry that the giving rate from DAFs is too low, Stubbing maintains that they “help stabilize the philanthropic ecosystem.”
Mike Kubzansky, CEO, Omidyar Network.Long known for its impact investing and its wide-ranging efforts to build communities, California-based Omidyar last year switched its focus to being, in effect, the conscience of tech. Expect the grant maker to speak out this year on issues of trust, safety, guardrails, and A.I. misuse. “We want to make sure that tech works for us, and not the other way around,” Kubzansky explains.
Leading in Stormy Times
Chronicle Illustration
Leonard Leo, Paula Kerger, Deborah Archer, Dwayne Wade, Greisa Martinez Ramirez, and Alexis McGill Johnson
Paula Kerger, chief executive, PBS. Federal support for public broadcasting was specifically targeted in a November 2024 op-ed by billionaire Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswany, explaining their cost-cutting efforts on behalf of President Trump. They asserted that the money is “being used in ways that Congress never intended.” Kerger led the fight against such defunding during the first Trump administration; she likely will be doing battle again.
Deborah Archer, board president, American Civil Liberties Union. By its own tally, the ACLU took legal action 430 times against the first Trump administration over issues ranging from immigration to reproductive health restrictions. “We have the playbook to fight back once again — and win,” the ACLU declared on its website. Expect Archer and ACLU executive director Anthony Romero to be leading public faces in those clashes.
Leonard Leo, chair, Teneo Network. Leo is best known for his leadership of the Federalist Society, which has championed conservative candidates for the U.S. judiciary, including multiple Supreme Court appointees. But Leo also chairs Teneo, a nonprofit that seeks to develop pipelines of conservative talent for Hollywood and other key arenas of cultural influence. “These types of changes do take time,” Leo said in a recent radio interview. But the pace of change “does seem to be faster than what I saw in the law.”
Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director, United We Dream. Born in Hidalgo, Mexico, Dallas-based Martinez Rosas has championed immigrants’ rights in the United States for nearly two decades. Right now, progressive philanthropy is in the “middle stages” of developing a response to Trump administration deportation efforts, she recently said. She favors an “all-out community response,” in which school systems, employers, and medical systems stand up for the rights of undocumented immigrants.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president, Planned Parenthood Federation. “We will continue to fight to keep health center doors open to all,” McGill Johnson wrote recently. Many Planned Parenthood services have come under fire from conservative critics, but as progressive nonprofits brace for ideological clashes with the new administration, McGill Johnson is telling her allies to stand firm. “It is much harder to take away a right when our claim is so firmly staked,” she declares.
Dwyane Wade,co-founder, Translatable. Pro basketball Hall of Famer Wade has been a highly visible presence in philanthropy since 2003, when he set up a family foundation focused on underserved youths, racial justice, and LGBTQ equality. His newest initiative, started last year with his daughter Zaya, is Translatable, which Wade is looking to expand this year. His website describes it as “a safe space for LGBTQIA+ youth to express themselves and a resource hub for our parents, families, and support systems.”
George is the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s editor-at-large, a role that includes feature editing, story coaching, occasional writing, and a mix of newsroom projects. He joined in April 2024.