An Occasional Note from the Director of U.S. Programs

Greetings. I am delighted to announce the appointment of a number of leaders in OSI's U.S. Programs who will direct our new and revamped funding initiatives, as discussed in our December and February newsletters. These program directors and campaign managers will join me and our dedicated, experienced staff in U.S. Programs to continue to advance justice and opportunity in the United States.

For an overview of our revised grantmaking structure in U.S. Programs, see this chart.

Raquiba LaBrie will take on the role of Program Director for the Equality and Opportunity Fund. Raquiba joined OSI in 2000 as program officer for U.S. Program's Access to Justice program, which focused on strengthening the federally funded civil legal aid field. In her most recent role as program director of the Sentencing and Incarceration Alternatives Project, she nurtured the work of grassroots criminal justice organizations working to oppose prison expansion and argue for alternatives to incarceration. She also directed the Soros Justice Fellowships, which address the intersection of criminal justice with a range of related concerns, including immigration policy, reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and the particular needs of women and children affected by the criminal justice system. In her new role, Raquiba will continue to spearhead an impressive new OSI initiative to respond to the subprime lending crisis.

Leonard Noisette will be the Program Director for the Criminal Justice Fund. Leonard has spent his entire professional career working in the criminal justice arena. For the last fifteen years, he has been the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem (NDS), a position he has held since shortly after the creation of NDS in 1990. Through his position at NDS, he has been involved in local, statewide and national discussions about how best to meet the many daunting challenges of our often failing criminal justice system. He has litigated criminal matters at both the trial and appellate level and trained and supervised young lawyers; he sits on the board of the New York State Defenders Association and is currently Chair of the Board of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association. He recently served on a special committee of the New York State Bar Association charged with examining the collateral consequences of criminal proceedings. Leonard will join OSI in mid-July.

William Vandenberg will be the Program Director for the Democracy and Power Fund. As the Founder and Executive Director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition, based in Denver, Bill has spent the last twelve years building the progressive movement by nurturing a dynamic, multiracial and multi-issue statewide coalition in Colorado. Colorado Progressive Coalition's victories under Bill's leadership include leading the campaigns to raise Colorado's minimum wage and rolling back Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights law (TABOR) and numerous other racial and economic justice wins. CPC is frequently cited as a model for similar efforts in other states. Bill will join OSI in late June.

Shawn Dove joined OSI in May as Campaign Manager for the Campaign for Black Male Achievement. Shawn has spent two decades in the youth development, education and community-building fields designing and implementing innovative initiatives. Among his many accomplishments, Shawn served as one of the founding directors of New York City's Beacon School movement in the early 1990's; he initiated a strategic response to the lack of African American and Latino male mentors for New York City's boys by creating a public awareness and recruitment initiative called the Male Mentoring Project; he founded Proud Poppa, a community empowerment publication for African American fathers; he is a co-founder of Harlem Men Stand Up, an empowerment project that produces quarterly summits in Harlem focusing on health, education, employment, social entrepreneurship and other issues; and he was also a senior leader with the Harlem Children's Zone.

Nancy Chang has taken on the role of Campaign Manager for the National Security and Human Rights Campaign. Nancy joined OSI as the Gideon Project program officer in 2005, where she spearheaded grantmaking on the fair administration of justice and death penalty issues. Since 2007, she has developed a range of grants that now form the foundation for our expanded national security and human rights campaign. Nancy comes to the position with years of experience on the issues, having litigated and written about numerous cases involving civil liberties and national security at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Please join me in welcoming our new leaders, and congratulating our colleagues as they take on these exciting new roles.

U.S. Programs is also continuing to seek a program director for our new Transparency and Integrity Fund. The deadline for applications has been extended to July 15, 2008.

In other staff transitions, John Kowal will be leaving OSI after ten years to take a newly created director position at the Ford Foundation overseeing grantmaking relating to justice and human rights. John has spearheaded a number of groundbreaking initiatives since joining OSI, and will leave an important legacy in U.S. Programs. He developed an effective and comprehensive strategy on judicial independence that has helped to build a vibrant, well-connected field, and nurtured a number of thoughtful, strategic grants to promote progressive constitutionalism. John also founded our LGBT rights portfolio, advocating internally and externally for the centrality of this community to open society. Please join me in congratulating John as he embarks on the next phase of his career.

These appointments mark a turning point in the transformation of U.S. Programs, and we are likely to add a few more staff before we are done. As new staff get into place, grantees will be contacted by our staff if your program officer or contact person will be changing as a result of our staff transitions. Thank you for your patience during the transition. We look forward to introducing you to our new programs and staff and working closely to build a more open society in the United States.

Ann Beeson
Director of U.S. Programs