A sea change in leadership has taken place at foundations in the Northwest. The Ford Family Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust in Oregon and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust across the state line in Vancouver, Wash., all have Generation X women of color at the helm, a reflection of nationwide efforts to diversify philanthropic leadership.
The new foundation leaders, who together are responsible for billions of philanthropic dollars, much of which will flow to projects in Oregon, regularly gather to share notes.
During one of their talks, Kara Inae Carlisle, who became president of the Ford Family Foundation in September 2023, asked her peers a tall question: How did they envision their legacy at a time of ideological, economic, and environmental divisions? There was agreement, Carlisle says, that as foundation leaders they were poised to take on a more visible role mending societal fissures, advocating for policy change, and serving as true partners to their grantees.
Carlisle thinks it’s time for foundation leaders to have more of a public profile. She sees herself and her peers as issue advocates and coalition builders among diverse groups, rather than behind-the-scenes grant makers. Because they are not tied to a particular political party, foundation leaders can serve as bridge builders in a state like Oregon, which has sharp political divides between urban and rural areas. But to do that, she says, they must take some risks.
“We may take some hits, but we’re not going to be pushed out of the conversation,” she says. “Leaders at this moment can’t be bound by a sense of fear.”
The foundations they lead have different approaches to giving. Murdock and the Ford Family Foundation tend to take a more conservative or free-market stance, while Meyer is decidedly progressive in its commitment to racial justice. But all three of the new leaders’ résumés showcase something in common: All three cut their teeth in the nonprofit sector rather than the corporate world or academia, which many foundation presidents of the past had done.
Carlisle, who is Korean American, was raised by adoptive white parents in rural Indiana and spent years running rural programs for the Kellogg and McKnight foundations. Toya Fick was chair of the Meyer Memorial Trust’s board before she became its president. Previously, she served as a staffer for Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate and led the Oregon branch of the educational nonprofit Stand for Children. Romanita Hairston headed up U.S. programs at World Vision for a decade and then served in various roles at Microsoft before becoming CEO at the Murdock Charitable Trust, where she had been a program officer earlier in her career.
Other leaders of major grant makers in the state also regularly meet with Carlisle, Fick, and Hairston. They include Carol Cheney, who leads the Collins Foundation, and Lisa Mensah, who heads the Oregon Community Foundation. Both are women of color.
No More Ghosting
Hairston remembers “black hole” grant applications from her time at World Vision. She would apply and get ghosted. “That’s not a great experience,” she says.
Now that Hairston is a grant maker, she’s committed to treating the groups she supports as “grantee customers.”
She set up a system at Murdock in which email inquiries are automatically channeled to the appropriate program officer. Response time has been cut in half, and feedback is given if applicants request it — even if Murdock doesn’t cut a check. Grantee service also means putting more specific information on Murdock’s website about grant criteria, grant size, and application deadlines.
The new group of Oregon leaders is well placed to bring a “service-oriented” mindset to their jobs, says Michelle DePass, Fick’s predecessor at Meyer. Fick hired communications staff at Meyer to amplify the messages of her grantees to policymakers and the broader public. Carlisle created a public-advocacy position to do much the same.
Fick has also tried to spell out on its website exactly what Meyer is looking to support. “Clarity is super helpful for folks who may not have resources to chase applications all the time.”
