Claire Rice, Executive Director, Arts Alliance Illinois
Prior to joining Arts Alliance Illinois, Claire was national director of Harvard University’s Sustain Arts project, an innovative data platform designed to build the capacity of the arts ecosystem in various cities around the country. Through this work, Claire has built a wide network of arts stakeholders and a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing the arts sector locally and nationally.
Claire’s 18 years of experience in the not-for-profit and corporate sectors also includesmanagement and production at the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan; managing a Royal Shakespeare Company residency and a Grammy Award winning concert recording were among her accomplishments before she began a three-year term as UMS interim director of education and community engagement. In this role, she worked to build context around and connection to the arts for a wide variety of audiences.
A graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the College of William and Mary, with a degree in public policy, Claire began her professional career as a management consultant with Accenture. She is a frequent grant review panelist and conference speaker and serves on the board of Chicago’s touring puppet theater company Blair Thomas & Company, and of the Neutral Zone Teen Center in Ann Arbor.
Rebecca Judd, Chicago Program Officer/Conservation and Kerri Forrest, Director, Lowcountry Program, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation
Rebecca Judd, a former Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Earthjustice and Clean Energy Policy Advocate for the Sierra Club, joined the foundation in part to more fully integrate strategy and advocacy into the foundation’s conservation work. Rebecca is attorney with an undergraduate business degree and additional experience at a both a public interest law firm and at a national not-for-profit working on environmental issues.
Kerri Forrest is a native of Charleston, South Carolina. She spent the early part of her career in national TV news production in Washington, D.C. Returning to South Carolina, Keri held a leadership position at the American College of the Building Arts. Kerri directs the foundation’s Lowcountry arts, land conservation, and collections programs.
Dan Bartholomay, Executive Director, Rail-Volution
Before joining Rail~Volution, Dan was Commissioner and CEO at the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency; director, Region and Communities & International Programs, at the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis; and executive director of North End Area Revitalization (NEAR) in St. Paul. His previous work included helping the Twin Cities region envision transit investments as a catalyst for community livability and helping create the Transportation and Affordability Index.
Kim R. Van Horn, Managing Director, Paul M. Angell Family Foundation
Before joining the Angell Family Foundation, Kim was program officer at the Field Foundation of Illinois where her grantmaking focused on urban poverty, the environment, human services, and economic and community development. She was also responsible for the foundation’s internship program. Before joining the Field Foundation in 2002, Kim served for seven years as co-director of the Chicago Abused Women’s Coalition’s groundbreaking Hospital Crisis Intervention Project at Cook County Hospital.
Kim has co-chaired the Donors Forum’s Environmental Grantmakers Group, has served on the board of Chicago Women in Philanthropy, and is a member of the Chicago Domestic Violence Advisory Council. Early in her career, she held several positions at the University of Chicago’s Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies during the first years of the school’s existence.