Leaving Katrina Behind for a New Effort to Aid Poor People

Sherece Y. West moved to Lafayette, La., in June 2005 to take over the leadership of the Carrier Foundation,

a family fund that seeks to improve the lives of poor families in the southwestern part of the state. But in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, after just two months on the job, Ms. West shifted her workload away from Carrier, helping to create the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, a charity established to assist rebuilding efforts. She eventually became the head of the new foundation.

This month, Ms. West is changing course once again as she takes over the presidency of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, in Little Rock, Ark., an established grant maker that concentrates on economic development, education, and racial and social justice throughout the state.

Ms. West, 41, who had never set foot in Arkansas until she interviewed for the Rockefeller job, says she was lured by a new opportunity and a belief that God led her to it.

“I never made a career plan, still to this moment don’t have one,” says Ms. West. “The deal I made with God was if I get it, I’ll take it, and if I don’t that means I have more work to do here.”

Established by the estate of the former governor of Arkansas, who died in 1973, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation is the second-wealthiest grant maker in the state, with assets of $140-million, and awards about $6-million annually.

Ms. West, who will earn $200,000 a year in her new job, is the first non-Arkansan to run the foundation, but Ivye L. Allen, its board chairwoman and president of the Foundation for the Mid South, in Jackson, Miss., says she was the board’s unanimous choice, partly because of her skill in working with other groups to further common goals.

“Our work is really about figuring out ways to do collaboration,” says Ms. Allen. “She has demonstrated her capacity to work with people, have a vision, and figure out how to find the right partners to move the work forward.”

While Ms. West never sought a career in philanthropy, she says that, as she was raised by a single mother, mostly in the housing projects of Baltimore and Brooklyn, N.Y., she knew she wanted to help poor people.

“There was a great deal of domestic and community violence and substance abuse that I experienced as a witness,” says Ms. West. “I didn’t know what made this neighborhood negative, but something had to be doing this, and I needed to find out what that something was.”

After earning her master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ms. West worked at Community Service Society, in New York, helping poor residents fight to stay in homes that were eligible for their landlords to redevelop. But Ms. West soon realized that while housing was her “passion,” she needed to broaden her scope if she hoped to permanently improve the lives of poor people.

In 1992, Ms. West got her chance to do that when she joined the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, where she and a colleague managed a $15-million program to improve downtrodden neighborhoods in five cities around the country by building parks, repairing schools, and, in one case, helping residents organize opposition to the opening of nearby liquor stores.

Ms. West partly credits her 13 years at the Casey Foundation with enabling her success in building the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation from scratch.

Other people agree. “She provided clear vision, coming from a foundation background. She knew what needed to be done early on,” says John M. Spain, executive vice president of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, who worked closely with Ms. West. “I’m sure she leaves feeling very confident that what she started will stay and continue to do good work because of her efforts, and she deserves the credit for that.”

The disaster-recovery foundation has raised $43-million and has awarded $16-million to 77 organizations.

Ms. West says that, even though she suffered from insomnia for six months while starting the foundation, she was not seeking to leave it. She would like to remain involved and has asked its trustees to consider her for a board seat if one opens up.

However, had she stayed, Ms. West says, her efforts would have gone toward fund raising and highlighting for the public the still-gaping needs in Louisiana.

“We are still in crisis down here,” she says. “We have hundreds of thousands of folks living in trailer homes, living in squalor. The dial has not been moved at all.”

In an interview, Ms. West spoke about her new position:

What appealed to you about the Rockefeller foundation job?

Being able to work again statewide. Their mission was on behalf of Arkansans on issues of race and social justice, education, and community development. Those are all areas that are right up my alley. And an opportunity for a leadership position in that kind of foundation doesn’t come up every day.

Will it be a change awarding less grant money than you did in your previous posts?

Our payout pales in comparison to being able to leverage additional support. So, for me, partnering with other groups is going to be a necessity. But it’s not so much if it’s $7-million or $70-million, it’s the work and being able to be of service to those folks is what’s appealing. The basic mission of the two groups is the same: to improve lives.

Are you abandoning the disaster-recovery efforts by leaving after just 20 months on the job?

I have created an organization that will continue with me gone. If I haven’t, I have failed as a leader. The LDRF is going to be left in good hands, the board is exceptional. K.C. Burton, my colleague from the Annie E. Casey Foundation who has been serving as chief operating officer, is going to step in as interim CEO. I don’t feel I am jumping ship because I strongly, spiritually believe in my faith. I went through a process with God that said, “It’s time to move on.”

Were you burned out from raising money at your current job?

I don’t have a problem raising money to help with Katrina and Rita. I am not looking to escape raising money. Fund raising is a challenge, but it is necessary for the change process. Now I am fine to step aside and give it to the next leader who can take it to the next place.

Are you looking forward to joining a foundation that doesn’t have a disaster mandate?

While there isn’t an emergency in Arkansas, there is still an urgency around poor people and the rights of poor people and good public policy that needs to be put in place. There is still the urgency of building capacity. So while I won’t be working in an emergency situation, I absolutely will be going to work with a sense of urgency.