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Philanthropy Southeast is proud to announce the members of the incoming 2023-24 Hull Fellows Class! These 32 leaders have been selected as the next participants of the Southeast's premier philanthropic leadership program. Following a kickoff at this year's Annual Meeting, they will engage in a year-long journey that will help them determine their own approach to leadership while also preparing to address the issues facing philanthropy and our region in the years and decades ahead.

Once their Hull experience is complete, the members of this new class will join a group of more than 300 Hull Alumni, many of whom are serving today as CEOs and senior executives at foundations and other charitable sector organizations throughout the region.

Chandra Allen Program Officer The West End Home Foundation Nashville, TN	Kathy Allen Community Engagement Director Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky Hazard, KY
Susanne Bell Senior Program Officer Danville Regional Foundation Danville, VA	Jessika Bond Associate-Sustainable Organizations Dogwood Health Trust Asheville, NC

SECF is excited to announce the 22 members of the 2021-22 class of Hull Fellows, the region’s premier philanthropic leadership development program. The new class joins a community that includes more than 300 Hull graduates, many of whom now serve as CEOs and senior executives at their foundations.

This year’s class will begin their Hull Fellows experience with a kickoff at this year’s Annual Meeting in Asheville, followed by webinars and a spring retreat. This will culminate with the presentation of capstone projects at the 2022 Annual Meeting.

In the months ahead, we will profile each member of this year's class on our blog and in our weekly Connect newsletter so you can get to know them better.

If you know any members of this year’s class, reach out to them and congratulate them!

The SECF family lost one of its most influential members last month with the passing of Bob Hull, who served as our president and CEO from 1978 until 1997 and inspired the creation of the Hull Fellows leadership development program. He was 88 years old.

“Under Bob’s leadership, SECF went from a young membership association still finding its way to a recognized leader within our region and the American philanthropic landscape,” current president and CEO Janine Lee said. “He became a valuable mentor to me and countless others in Southern philanthropy – that legacy of mentorship will live on for years to come through the Hull Fellows program, which recently celebrated 20 years of leadership development.”

Even though Hull retired nearly 25 years ago, he continued to be a regular presence at SECF events and programs until the present day. He and his wife, Shannon, were a regular presence at the Annual Meeting as SECF’s honored guests. His last Annual Meeting would be the 50^th Anniversary celebration in Atlanta, which he helped plan as a member of the 50^th Anniversary Task Force.

He also played an active role in the Hull Fellows program that bears his name. In recent years, he spoke to each class, both in-person and via webinar, to share his wit and wisdom with the next generation of philanthropic leaders. 

Before entering philanthropy, Wesley Prater worked on behalf of retired citizens in Ohio. He analyzed health policy in Washington, D.C. He has also studied at institutions like Yale University and Ohio State University.

Through it all, however, he’s only called one place home – Mississippi, where he now works at a program officer for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

“I have been fortunate to live in different parts of the country throughout my adult life and travel around the world, but there is no place I love more than my home state of Mississippi,” he said. “The strength, intelligence, success, and love I have witnessed from Mississippians gives me more hope than ever for the state’s future.”

Though based in Michigan, the Kellogg Foundation has made Mississippi a priority place for its investments as part of its work to advance racial equity. Wesley’s work there has focused on health care policy and advocacy efforts.

“The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has a long history of supporting racial justice and racial equity not only in the South but across the globe,” Wesley said. “The past year has reinforced the importance of our work to continue working with communities to address the critical needs of children and families, support the nonprofit sector, and tackle issues around racial injustice.”

While his previous work and studies prepared him well for much of his current role, Wesley came to the Kellogg Foundation without much experience within philanthropy. He said SECF’s Hull Fellows program has helped him better understand the sector’s role in helping communities.

Scholarship programs have been a part of the philanthropic toolbox for decades, allowing foundations to provide direct aid to young members of the community seeking a college education.

The importance of these programs has become more apparent than ever in recent years, as long-standing educational disparities in America, particularly those affecting Black communities, have received long overdue attention.

For Monique Pitts-Taylor, the scholarship director at the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, this work is deeply personal and motivating.

“The pandemic did not reveal a new call for racial justice, it just intensely magnified what others have looked away from for many years,” she said. “As an African American female, I have always saw the need for racial justice and equity in my area of work. Being a scholarship director, I have always felt that it is my duty to ensure that all eligible students are given the equal opportunity to compete for funding for college.”

The passion Monique brings to her work has also motivated her to develop herself as a leader – she recently finished a year of work in the 2019-20 class of Hull Fellows.

“I was motivated to participate in the Hull Fellows program because I wanted the opportunity to learn and grow with a diverse group of leaders,” she said. “I saw this program as an opportunity to meet new people and learn new ideas in this awesome world of philanthropy.”

Throughout its history, the Hull Fellows program has developed a deserved reputation for propelling its participants to leadership roles within Southern philanthropy – sometimes, the process even begins before the fellowship is over.

That’s exactly what happened to Danielle Gray. When she joined the 2019-20 Hull Fellows class, she was a program officer at the R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Foundation in Atlanta. By time she finished her Capstone Project, she was associate director of The Zeist Foundation.

Having settled into her new role, Danielle says she’s excited to work with The Zeist Foundation board during a period of transition.

“We will be onboarding the first group of Next Generation trustees, moving toward a paperless office, and re-evaluating internal systems all while operating in a time that is anything but business as usual,” she said. “I am excited to dig in on all these fronts, but I think I’m most excited about helping with the Next Generation transition and working with them to not only establish their roles as trustees, but also lay a foundation that continues to engage and prepare subsequent generations for board service through informal participation in philanthropy and community.”

That’s a heavy workload, but Danielle is well equipped to handle it. She has already worked for two family foundations and, thanks to the Hull program, has a nearby mentor with similar experience: Lynn Pattillo, president of The Pittulloch Foundation. 

Much of Margy Thomas’ life and career has been devoted to her hometown of Warrenton, Virginia, a town of about 10,000 people situated between the fringes of exurban Washington, D.C., and the state’s rural Piedmont region.

Her dedication to Warrenton eventually led her to the PATH Foundation, a health legacy funder focused on access to health care, child wellness, mental health and senior services. As a program officer, Margy is able to put her extensive public health education and experience to work – while earning her master’s degree in public health, she even worked with the local government in Warrenton on a Health Impact Assessment.

Already armed with expertise, experience and deep bonds to the community she serves, Margy decided in 2019 to take her development to the next level by signing up for SECF’s Hull Fellows program.

“I was eager to apply to the Hull Fellows program after experiencing the rich hands-on educational opportunities at SECF conferences and regional meetings,” she said. “I wanted to improve my abilities as a leader and build connections across the philanthropic sector.”

The Hull experience, Margy says, has given her a much deeper understanding of philanthropy’s work and how it can be most effective in a community like Warrenton and the three-county region the PATH Foundation serves. 

Sarah McBroom holds a title showing up with increasing frequency across Southern philanthropy: equity officer.

In that role, she provides leadership for the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to pursue economic, educational, social, ethnic, and racial equity for everyone in Arkansas. But to help others effectively, Sarah knew she needed to develop herself as well – thankfully, she knew exactly where to go: SECF’s Hull Fellows program.

“I was excited about the opportunity to connect with leaders across the southeastern states to build relationships in the hopes of building a better future,” she said. “I am passionate about building an inclusive, prosperous, and equitable American South. I believe philanthropy has a powerful role to play in that movement, but it will require us to learn, grow, and reimagine together as a sector.”

Sarah’s learning journey over the past year has been aided by her Hull mentor: Christine Reeves Strigaro, executive director of The Sapelo Foundation. Both have brought to their jobs a significant focus on equity, particularly in rural communities.

Over the past year, Richmond, Virginia, has been a hub of philanthropic activity and innovation thanks largely to the work and partnership of three SECF members: the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond, the Robins Foundation and the Richmond Memorial Health Foundation (RMHF).

In Richmond and elsewhere, the impact COVID-19 pandemic has not landed evenly. Communities of color have disproportionately paid the health and economic costs of the crisis – an issue of chief concern to Kendra Jones, RMHF’s director for health equity, arts and culture.

“We know that the people we serve have incredible power, lived experiences that we can learn from and they persevere despite the system that was created to oppress them,” Kendra said. “However, they need resources – and we share our resources with them by the means of financial, intellectual and social capital.”

As director of the foundation’s Health Equity and Arts (HEArts) program, Kendra has helped offer community members opportunities for creative expression that help people be heard, bridge divides and collaborate on solutions to inequity.

“Communities have been able to advocate for criminal justice reform, neighborhood and pedestrian safety, to destigmatize mental illness, and so many other issues that affect their ability to achieve health equity,” she said.

The Betty and Davis Fitzgerald Foundation, a family foundation based in Atlanta, focuses part of its giving on education – a subject quite familiar to Alice Hall, one of the foundation’s newest trustees and a learning specialist at Atlanta’s Pace Academy.

For Alice, however, experience as an educator wasn’t enough. She wanted to expand her knowledge of philanthropy itself. For that, she turned to SECF’s Hull Fellows program.

“This program almost feels like getting a personalized degree in philanthropy, which was exactly what I needed to be a productive, impactful part of the Fitzgerald Foundation,” Alice said. “As a foundation board member who does not work professionally in the world of philanthropy, I wanted to be a part of the Hull Fellows program so that I could gain a deeper understanding of how philanthropy works.”

Alice says she’s gained exactly during her year in the program, which culminated earlier this week when she and a group of her Hull classmates gave a Capstone presentation on Inspiring the Next Generation of Philanthropy.

“Through the Hull Fellows program, I expanded my knowledge of philanthropy from only being familiar with a small family foundation in Atlanta to understanding how a wide variety of organizations function throughout the entire Southeast,” she said. “I was privileged to hear from speakers who are experts in the field, as well as have personal conversations with my fellow classmates, who are respected professionals at their foundations.”