The US Council on Foundations (CoF) has announced the 2018 Cohort for its Career Pathways Development Program, a year-long leadership preparation programme whose purpose is to increase the number of candidates from diverse backgrounds in leadership positions in philanthropy.

The cohort for the coming year comprises 24 fellows from a broad spread of US philanthropic organisations which include community foundations and corporate citizenship programmes as well as those from larger players such as the Gates and Packard Foundations.

Elizabeth Cheung.

Among them, for example, is Elizabeth Cheung, Senior Program Officer at the Conrad N Hilton Foundation, Courtney Lopez, Director of Development at the Santa Fe Community Foundation, LaDawn Sullivan, Director of Leadership and Equity at the Denver Foundation and Steven Pearson, Manager of IBM Corporate Citizenship.

The Program was developed in response to growing concern for the need to promote inclusive practices and diversity in philanthropic decision-making.

The 2016-2017 cohort of CoF’s Career Pathways alumni.

It builds on CoF’s developing role in this area, which effectively began with its 2009 research, Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership: Baseline Report.

See also the September 2017 issue of Alliance, Nothing about us without us – philanthropy’s diversity challenge.

Andrew Milner is associate editor of Alliance. Email andrew@alliancemagazine.org