WASHINGTON, DC— The Board of Directors of the Public Welfare Foundation announced today that Candice C. Jones will serve as the Foundation’s next president. Ms. Jones has extensive executive experience in the public and the nonprofit sectors and has long been involved with social justice issues.
“We are so pleased that Candice Jones will be the next leader of the Public Welfare Foundation,” said Lydia M. Marshall, chair of the Board of Directors. “In Candice we have found a bold, imaginative, and strategic leader, who is deeply committed to our social justice mission, core values, and track record of innovation. Candice’s broad experience in the public, foundation, and nonprofit sectors, keen understanding of our work, and successes in collaborating to achieve lasting change, make her ideally suited to advance the efforts of the Foundation.”
Most recently, Ms. Jones has served as Senior Advisor at Chicago CRED in Chicago, Illinois, an organization dedicated to reducing violence in Chicago by providing opportunity to those at highest risk of being victims of gun violence. There, she brought together groups concerned with justice reform and violence intervention to push for larger investments in violence intervention programs and broader support for efforts to reduce incarceration and create more community-based opportunities for youth and adults.
Previously, she served as Director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice, supervising operations, programming, budget matters, and communications for a cabinet level state agency. She also previously served as a White House Fellow, managing a portfolio within the U.S. Department of Education that included developing education strategies for correctional institutions and driving a plan to reinstate federal Pell grants for youth and adults in custody.
Ms. Jones also has prior experience in philanthropy, having served as a program officer with the MacArthur Foundation where she managed a grant portfolio focused on decreasing racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system and on improving the quality of defense for indigent youth.
“I am pleased and humbled to lead the Public Welfare Foundation and will work diligently to fulfill its mission of advancing justice and opportunity for people in need nationwide,” said Ms. Jones. “I look forward to collaborating with the Board, staff, and grantees of the Foundation to sustain—and to enhance—the organization’s commitment to critical issues involving fundamental fairness and equity.”
In assuming her new role on October 1, 2017, Ms. Jones succeeds Mary E. McClymont, who is stepping down as President & CEO. “As we welcome Ms. Jones and look forward to working with her, we salute Mary McClymont for her seven years of outstanding leadership,” noted Ms. Marshall.
Ms. Jones received her J.D. from New York University School of Law and her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
