MIAMI—(May 20, 2015)—Lilly Weinberg, philanthropy professional with broad experience in community development, will direct the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s donor-advised grants to community foundations across the country.
Lilly Weinberg
Weinberg will work with community foundations and local leaders in 18 of the communities where Knight invests to discover and support ideas that contribute to these cities’ successes. She starts June 1.
Weinberg joined Knight Foundation as the special assistant to the president in August 2012. In this role, she worked with program staff and grantees across Knight’s focus areas on strategic projects that promote more informed and engaged communities.
She previously worked with the Connected by 25 Institute, where she specialized in simplifying complicated foster care policies and implementing them. She also worked at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the New York City Economic Development Corp., in both cases creating strategies to promote economic development, entrepreneurship and business growth.
“Lilly’s commitment to building stronger communities is remarkable. She has spent her career promoting economic opportunity in cities and creating the type of connections that are vital to the spread of civic innovation,” said Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation’s vice president for community and national initiatives.
“Understanding diverse local needs and fostering relationships with the people Knight supports is essential to pushing forward the goal of our communities program— to create more successful cities,” said Weinberg. “I look forward to working with community foundations to continue to build these bridges and make our cities better places to live and work.”
Weinberg has joint master’s degrees in business administration and public administration from the MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Kennedy School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and environmental studies from Emory University, which allowed her to study and research sustainable development in Botswana, Namibia, Peru and Turks and Caicos.
A resident of Coconut Grove, Weinberg is active in Miami civic life. She graduated as a member of the 2012-13 Leadership Miami class and was a fellow of the 2013 New Leaders Council Miami. She served as the 2013-14 executive director of the Miami council and now serves on the board.
She succeeds Bahia Ramos as Knight Foundation director of community foundations. Ramos was recently appointed Knight’s new program director for arts.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.
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CONTACTS:
Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, Knight Foundation, 305-908-2646, [email protected]