Emmett Carson Named Community Foundations Chair at Indiana University

Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has selected Emmett D. Carson to serve as its first Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Chair on Community Foundations.

As a visiting scholar, Mr. Carson will develop the school’s community foundations syllabus and serve as a guest lecturer. Indiana will begin searching for a permanent professor to fill the position this fall.

While at Indiana, Mr. Carson will continue as chief executive and president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a position he has held since the foundation’s inception in 2006. The foundation manages over $4.7-billion, making it the largest community foundation in the country. It has been a prime recipient of the tech industry’s growing bounty. In 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged roughly $500-million in company shares to the foundation. The foundation also helped administer Mr. Zuckerberg’s $100-million donation to the public-school system of Newark, N.J.

Mr. Carson previously served 12 years as head of the Minneapolis Foundation.

He also has a long relationship with Indiana University, from which he received an honorary doctorate in 2007.