People in Philanthropy 10/23

A BLADE OF GRASS: The New York focused, social justice oriented artist funder A Blade of Grass has announced its new Executive, Lu Zhang. Recently, she was ED of United States Artists (USA), but before that she was Deputy Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic, non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where she provided strategic and operational oversight, and led resource initiatives for local artists. Watch for this woman. She will soon be a national somebody.HEWLETT: Tom DeCaigny, a former student/intern of mine, will become a program officer for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s performing-arts program beginning January 9.IF:  if, A Foundation for Radical Possibility  named Temi F. Bennett and Hanh Lethe as the next co-chairs. The foundation serves the Washington DC region and uses a participatory grantmaking approach for its community power grantmaking program.SURDNA: Surdna Foundation announced the appointment of Danielle LeBlanc as Program Officer, Inclusive Economies. Before Surdna, Danielle served as Coop Development Director at Green Worker Cooperatives, where she advised and trained worker-owned cooperative businesses.HALL FAMILY FOUNDATION: Kansas City’s Hall Family Foundation has a new Program Officer, Halley French. About a year ago, she was working for the Kauffmann Foundation.MCKNIGHT FOUNDATION: David Nicholson, the Vibrant & Equitable Communities Program Director, is moving on. This is from the the McKnight update:“Since joining the Foundation in 2020, David Nicholson has led the Vibrant & Equitable Communities program with intention and care as its inaugural Program Director. In the past three years he has cultivated a strong, leaderful bench of program staff, increased the Foundation’s proximity to our partners, and much more. Earlier this month, David shared with us the news that he plans to step down from his role at McKnight at the end of the month. We are deeply grateful to David for his leadership and his contributions to the Communities program, McKnight, and our partners, and we wish him the very best in his next chapter.”