New Executives to Kauffman Foundation Leadership Team
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announces the appointment of three executives who will help lead the Foundation as it continues its evolution under Dr. Angela Burns-Wallace. As Dr. Burns-Wallace prepares to share an updated strategic plan, Allison Greenwood Bajracharya, Yvonne Owens Ferguson, Ph.D., and Gloria Jackson-Leathers will be charged with implementing a renewed approach to Program Strategy; Research, Learning, and Evaluation; and Community Engagement to support the mission of economic stability, mobility and prosperity for all.
Yvonne Owens Ferguson, Ph.D., M.P.H., joins the Foundation as vice president, Research, Learning, and Evaluation. Dr. Ferguson’s appointment will be effective on March 28.
An accomplished researcher and evaluator, Dr. Ferguson brings more than 15 years of experience in leading community-engaged research, large-scale program evaluations and data-informed strategic planning.
A native Kansas Citian, she comes to the Foundation from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD where she led a $300 million, 10-year, first-of-its-kind initiative that funds community organizations directly to work with research partners to conduct health equity research intervening on social determinants of health and structural factors shaping conditions of everyday life.
Gloria Jackson-Leathers joins Dr. DeAngela Burns-Wallace in the Office of the President at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation as senior advisor, Community Engagement. Jackson-Leathers, who has 25 years’ experience at the Foundation, will be responsible for fostering and enhancing relationships between the Foundation and the diverse communities it serves.
Allison Greenwood Bajracharya joins the Foundation as vice president, Program Strategy, effective April 15. In this role, Bajracharya will oversee the strategies, results and performance indicators for the Foundation’s programmatic grantmaking and initiatives. A fourth-generation Kansas Citian, Bajracharya comes to the Foundation from Los Angeles, where most recently, she worked for America Achieves, a national nonprofit that works with communities to advance inclusive economic growth, more equitable access to opportunity and good jobs.
Bajracharya brings more than 20 years’ experience developing teams, partnerships and coalitions that deliver systems-level change and equity-centered transformation
There, as the chief strategy and communities officer, she led the place-based team charged with building trust, strategic guidance and capacity for ambitious local coalitions across the country seeking to leverage federal and philanthropic funding to achieve inclusive economic transformation.
Gray and Adams Receive UMKC Law School Recognition Awards
Each year, the UMKC Foundation and Law Alumni Association recognize exceptional alumni and friends of the School of Law. We bring to your attention two of their eight 2024 Award honorees: Jon Gray and Latricia Scott Adams.
Latricia Scott Adams received the Alvin Sykes Justice Award. She serves as Director of Legal Aid of Western Missouri’s pro bono program, known as the Volunteer Attorney Project (VAP). With the program since 1989, she has helped grow the program that provides free legal services on civil cases to hundreds of area residents each year.
Judge Jon Gray, a 1976 graduate of UMKC Law School, was recognized with the school’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Judge Gray was appointed to the Circuit Court of Jackson County in 1986 by Gov. John Ashcroft serving for more than 20 years. He is currently a partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, having joined the firm in 2007.
