The cryptic news of Peter Degnan’s exit as managing director of the William Penn Foundation (“William Penn Foundation leader departing after six months,” July 29) came shortly after a protracted leadership vacuum created when his predecessor, Jeremy Nowak, abruptly departed in 2012. The ongoing leadership upheaval is disconcerting for Philadelphia’s communities. During our organizaton’s assessment of William Penn, civic leaders shared concerns about volatility at the foundation’s helm. The decision to elevate chief philanthropy officer Laura Sparks to executive director signals a positive move that will ensure continuity of grant-making priorities and strategies, as well as coherence between Penn’s operations and programming.
I hope these repeated management changes have caused Philadelphia’s largest foundation to abandon its rigid and hypocritical restriction against funding nonprofits that experience an executive transition until a new director has been in place for at least a year.
|Lisa Ranghelli, director of foundation assessment, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Washington, lranghelli@ncrp.org
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