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Kate Barr (elected 2016) is the President and CEO of Propel Nonprofits, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit whose mission is to fuel the impact and effectiveness of nonprofits with guidance, expertise, and capital. Kate leads Propel’s team in developing and implementing innovative financing and programming and works with the board of directors to direct organizational planning and growth. She frequently presents workshops and presentations on nonprofit strategy and finance and is a sector level leader with articles, blogs, and policy papers.
Prior to joining the organization in 2000, Kate was Senior Vice President of Riverside Bank in Minneapolis with a wide portfolio of strategic and business responsibilities. She began her professional life as business manager of a performing arts nonprofit. Kate holds an MA in Leadership from Hamline University. She has been on the adjunct faculty of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and is alumnus of the Humphrey School’s Policy Fellows Program and the Shannon Institute. She currently serves on the boards of the Jerome Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy.
Sarah Bellamy (elected 2018) is a nationally renowned racial equity facilitator and practitioner of racial healing. Her methods are holistic, profound, and foster powerful intimacy and authenticity for clients. She brings a wealth of scholarship, strategic acuity, and deep compassion to consultative and coaching relationships. Her writing focuses on memoir, personal essays, plays, and short stories. She is a stage director and the president of Penumbra, a center for racial healing that houses one of the nation’s oldest and largest African American theatre companies.
Sarah is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and holds an M.A. in the Humanities from the University of Chicago. She has taught at Macalester College, the University of Minnesota, and served as Visiting Professor of Theatre and Culture at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. Her lectures on the power of race and representation have been presented across the country illuminating the ways in which images, narratives, and media influence perception and ultimately shape lives. She is a skilled and dynamic public speaker offering audiences fresh, big-hearted, and courageous perspectives on a wide range of topics. She is especially recognized for her work on racial healing, authenticity, and resiliency.
Sarah has been awarded the Hubert H. Humphrey Public Leadership Award, a Bush Foundation Fellowship, and served on the Board of Directors for Theatre Communications Group. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Jerome Foundation. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband and two small children. More at www.sbellamy.com
Helga Davis is a vocalist and performance artist with feet planted on the most prestigious international stages and with firm roots in the realities and concerns of her local community whose work draws out insights that illuminate how artistic leaps for an individual can offer connection among audiences. Davis was principal actor in the 25th-anniversary international revival of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’s seminal opera Einstein on the Beach. She also starred in Wilson’s The Temptation of St. Anthony, with libretto and score by Bernice Johnson Reagon. Among the collaborative and works written for her are Oceanic Verses by Paola Prestini, You Us We All by Shara Nova and Andrew Ondrejcak and Yet Unheard, a tribute to Sandra Bland by Courtney Bryan, based on the poem by Sharan Strange. She has conceived and performed First Responder and Wanna as responses to Until and The Let Go by multidisciplinary artist Nick Cave. She is artist in residence at National Sawdust and Joe’s Pub, host of the eponymous podcast HELGA on WQXR, winner of the 2019 Greenfield Prize in composition, a 2019 Alpert Award finalist, and the 2018–21 visiting curator for the performing arts at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Daniel Alexander Jones (elected 2017) makes theatre, music, and live performance. His wildflower body of work continues to grow in dialogue with a wide range of collaborators and audiences. Duat premiered at Soho Rep in 2016 to critical acclaim (including a five-star review from Time Out). His other performance pieces and plays include Phantasmatron, Phoenix Fabrik, Blood:Shock:Boogie, and Bel Canto. He adapted the second of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books into a musical, Bright Now Beyond, with composer Bobby Halvorson and director Will Davis. Daniel’s multi-chapter series of solo autobiographical performances, The Book of Daniel, included collaborations with MacArthur Fellow Walter Kitundu, and celebrated director Tea Alagic.
Jones first appeared as his performance alter-ego, Jomama Jones in 1995. Jomama has released four albums, Lone Star, Radiate, Six Ways Home, and, in 2017, the double-album, Flowering. Jomama premiered Radiate to rave reviews and sold-out houses at Soho Rep in 2010 and the piece subsequently toured to cities including Los Angeles, Austin, Minneapolis and Boston. Most recently, Jomama presented Black Light at Joe’s Pub as part of the Public Theatre’s Under the Radar Festival, and at Penumbra Theatre Company.
Jones received a 2015 Doris Duke Artist Award in recognition of his risk-taking practice and was a 2016 USA Artist Fellow; he was also named an inaugural Mellon Foundation Creative Research Fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle for 2017-2019. He is an Associate Professor of Theatre at Fordham University in NYC, where he resides. danielalexanderjones.com
Thomas J. Lax (elected 2020) is a writer and an interlocutor and Curator of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art. He is currently preparing the exhibition Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present with Linda Goode Bryant, scheduled for 2022. He was the inaugural recipient of the Cisneros Research Grant, traveling to Brazil in 2020 to research contemporary Black art. He worked with colleagues across the Museum on a major rehang of the collection in 2019 and co-organized the exhibition Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done in 2018 with Ana Janevski and Martha Joseph. He has organized other projects at MoMA including Unfinished Conversations, Maria Hassabi: PLASTIC, Neil Beloufa: The Colonies and Steffani Jemison: Promise Machine. Previously, he worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem for seven years. https://thomasjlax.com/Info
Lori Lea Pourier, (Oglala Lakota) (elected 2018) has served as the President/CEO, First Peoples Fund (FPF) since 1998. Dedicated to a vision of restoring and strengthening cultural assets within tribal communities for nearly 30 years, she focuses her efforts on bringing philanthropic resources to Native artist entrepreneurs and culture bearers. Through its Indigenous Arts Ecology program, FPF partners with Native CDFI's and community-based nonprofits to strengthen the support for arts and culture in tribal communities.
Her early work began at First Nations Development Institute and the executive director of the International Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN). She is a 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life, and a 2013 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Award. Pourier is an alumnus of the American’s for Indian Opportunities (AIO) American Indian Ambassadors Leadership Program where she stands with more than 350 Indigenous leaders.
She has served two terms on the board of directors of the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) and Native Americans in Philanthropy and currently serves on the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Board of Trustees. She holds a Master of Science degree from New Hampshire College Graduate School of Business.
Rick Scott (elected 2020) retired from The McKnight Foundation in 2020. He joined McKnight in 1999 as Director of Finance, becoming Vice President, Finance and Administration in 2000. In 2006 he was named Vice President of Finance and Compliance, and Secretary, focusing on foundation governance, compliance, financial operations, and investment management. Previously, Rick spent 5 years as CFO of The Guthrie Theater following 5 years as CFO of a human service agency in the Twin Cities area and thirteen years in financial management in the tech industry. His undergraduate and graduate studies were in international economics, supplemented with language studies in Spanish, Russian, German, Italian and French. Rick continues to advise non-profit organizations on investment, finance, and compliance issues.
Community service has included boards of MN Museum of American Art (the M), MN Council on Foundations, MN Charities Review Council, PFund, Quatrefoil Library, Foundation Financial Officers Group, and Northern Clay Center, and committees of Third Avenue Playhouse, Council on Foundations, and Headwaters Foundation among others. He is a member of the Walker Art Center, Mpls Institute of Arts, Russian Art Museum, Northern Clay Center, the M, and Door County Land Trust.
Rick’s non-work interests include the visual and theater arts, history and language studies, hiking, sailing, skiing, land conservation, and both domestic and international travel. Although a St. Paul native, Rick now lives in south Minneapolis (primary) and Door County, Wisconsin (part-time) with his husband Dale.
Sanjit Sethi (elected 2020), the President of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, has two decades of experience as an artist, curator and cultural leader. Sethi’s previous positions include Director of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University, Director of the Center for Art and Public Life, Barclay Simpson Professor, and Chair of Community Arts at the California College of the Arts; and Executive Director of the Santa Fe Art Institute. Additionally, Sethi has taught at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sethi received a BFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, an MFA in Ceramics from University of Georgia, and an MS in Advanced Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sethi has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, including a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg foundation, and a Fulbright fellowship in India.
As an artist and curator, Sethi’s work has spanned different media and geographies. Past works include the Kuni Wada Bakery Remembrance; Richmond Voting Stories; the Gypsy Bridge project. Recent curatorial projects have included Spiked: The Unpublished Political Cartoons of Rob Rogers and the upcoming exhibition, 6.13.89 The Cancelling of the Mapplethorpe Exhibition. Additionally, Sethi is currently working on the Portland Hospice Potters Network and a body of paintings and drawings—the Delta Series.
Sanjit Sethi is the 19th President of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Libby Hlavka has been a Jerome Foundation Member since 2015. She is a member of the Hill family and grew up in St. Paul hearing wonderful stories about Jerome Hill, a first cousin of her grandfather. Several of his paintings hang in her home and remind her daily of Jerome’s legacy—his vivid example of a passionate life devoted to creating art and supporting artists.
Hlavka has over twenty years of experience in strategic planning, program development, and financial management within academic, corporate, and non-profit organizations. She currently serves as President of the Driscoll Foundation. Before returning to Minnesota, she held several senior administrative positions within Stanford University, focused on strategy and curriculum development. Prior to Stanford, Hlavka was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. She began her career as a financial manager at GE.
In addition to the Jerome Foundation, Hlavka serves on the boards of the Northwest Area Foundation, Minnesota Public Radio, and St. Paul Academy and Summit School. Her past board experience includes Milkweed Editions, Franconia Sculpture Park, and College Possible, and she is an active volunteer and fundraiser for a number of other schools and non-profit organizations.
Hlavka received a BA in History from Yale University, an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and an MFA in Literature and Creative Writing from Bennington College. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and their three children.
Sara Maud Lydiatt-Vanier became a Jerome Foundation Member in 2009. As a direct family relation to Jerome she grew up appreciating his life, work and legacy. On a daily basis, she is surrounded by his art; Jerome Hill’s paintings decorate her office. Lydiatt-Vanier also has a strong connection to the Camargo foundation, having spent a year living in France and often visiting the Foundation over the last 25 years.
In her own professional life Lydiatt-Vanier owns an art gallery in Montreal, Canada that specializes in photography, and oversees her family businesses serving as administrator for some 20 companies in the areas of farming, forestry and land development in Canada, the USA, and New Zealand. Lydiatt-Vanier also serves as director of the Hill Farm Historical Society, the Organix Foundation, and the Kenauk Institute.
Lydiatt-Vanier has a Masters of Arts in the history of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture from the Bard Graduate Center in New York, USA (2002). Her love for trains, travel, design, and her own family history, inspired her MA thesis: Transcontinental Travels: Two American Limited Trains, 1900-1914, which examined the interiors of early twentieth-century transcontinental railcars, exploring the relationship between railcar design features that impacted early tourism, comfort of travel, and had influence on the newly opened American West. Lydiatt-Vanier has BA in English Literature (1994) and a BFA in Art History from Concordia University (1999). She is married and has two young children.
William Sheeline has been a Jerome Foundation Member since 2013. Prior to that he was a Trustee of the Camargo Foundation from 2005 to 2013. His father, Paul Sheeline, was a friend of Jerome Hill’s and a Trustee of the Camargo Foundation from its early years in the 1970s until 2003.
Sheeline spent the first part of his career as a journalist with Fortune Magazine and then spent the 1990s as a member of the investment team at GEICO, the insurance company. Today his company, Longview Research Partners, serves investment firms and specializes in deep due diligence on companies, an approach to investigative field research that assesses the quality—of people, processes and culture—of businesses in order to better understand their associated risks, opportunities and prospects as investments.
Sheeline also serves on the Board of Directors of the Oyster Bay Youth & Family Counseling Agency. He is a past Trustee of East Woods School in Oyster Bay and a current member of its Investment Committee. He is also a member of the Station Committee of the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum, a local effort to renovate the abandoned train station first used by Theodore Roosevelt.
Nick Slade, Jerome Foundation Member since 2019, is a member of the Hill family and grew up in Minneapolis. His first introduction to Jerome Hill’s work was a family screening of his autobiographical movie Film Portrait. The opening sequence in negative and the color it reveals in things has remained with him as a reminder that there is always more than one way to see, even when shaving in the bathroom.
He currently is serving on active duty as a judge advocate with the Minnesota National Guard. Previously he has worked for the U.S. Army at the National Guard Bureau in Virginia, for the Minnesota Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, in private practice as a consumer rights attorney with Barry, Slade & Wheaton LLC, and as an assistant public defender for the Office of the Public Defender 2nd Judicial District in St. Paul.
Slade earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and his juris doctor from Hamline University School of Law. He served in the U.S. Army, on active duty from 1982 to 1985, and in the U.S. Army Reserves until 1994. He joined the Minnesota National Guard as an attorney in the Judge Advocate Generals Corps in 2012, serving on active duty in 2012-2013 and 2015 to the present.
He is currently a trustee with the Northwest Area Foundation having previously served on the board from 2010-2019. He was as a member of the Minnesota Supreme Court Legal Services Advisory Committee in 2007-2015 and was on the board of Minnesota’s Franconia Sculpture Park in 1997-2011.
Slade lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and has two adult children.