McKnight@60: Leadership

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Historically, one of McKnight's most striking features has been its limited number of leadership transitions. In over 60 years the Foundation has seen fewer than 15 leaders, including presidents, executive directors, and board chairs. While each has left a unique lasting impression, all have led within the vision and values of William and Maude McKnight, and their daughter Virginia.

William L. McKnight and Walter Trenerry
William McKnight and his lawyer, Walter Trenerry, were the Foundation’s first leaders. After establishing the Foundation in 1953, they worked together for the next 20 years to create a vision and purpose for its grantmaking. With the help of the first board of directors, which included Maude and Virginia, they determined The McKnight Foundation’s first areas of interest — charity, science, religion, education, and arts and humanities. (For more information on the Foundation's background, click here.)

Virginia McKnight Binger and Russell Ewald
In 1974, William passed the torch off to his and Maude’s only child, Virginia. As a part of the transition, Virginia asked her friend Russell Ewald, then head of The Minneapolis Foundation, to be McKnight’s executive director. Their tenure lasted into the late 1980s. Virginia and Russell went on hundreds of site visits, saw the Foundation’s assets grow from $7.9 million to $764 million, supervised the creation of many new, innovative programs, and established the Foundation’s reputation as a creative, compassionate, strategic grantmaker.
 
Michael O’Keefe and Rip Rapson
In 1989, after Russell retired, the Foundation brought on Michael O’Keefe as executive vice president. In his 10 years with McKnight, O’Keefe implemented formal program evaluations, created new program areas, and oversaw a tripling of staff members, from eight to 24 employees. Rip Rapson became the new president in 1999. Throughout Rapson’s six years at the Foundation, he increased McKnight’s influence in public policy work and helped it leverage resources through new partnerships and communications.

Board chairs through the years
Through the last 60 years, virtually all of the board chairs have been members of the founding family. William served as chair from 1953 to 1974. After that, Virginia took the helm until 1987, at which point she handed it down to her eldest daughter, Cynthia Binger Boynton. Since 1987, the board has been chaired by Cynthia; Virginia’s granddaughters, Noa Staryk and Erika L. Binger; Robert J. Struyk; and Noa’s husband, Ted Staryk. Another aspect of our board's leadership is that many of our programs were created becauseof personal experiences of individual directors — our longtime arts program is greatly informed by Cynthia Binger Boynton's life as an artist herself, and our grantmaking in Southeast Asia was inspired and directly shaped by her brother James “Mac” Binger, who served two tours as a navy pilot in Vietnam and witnessed firsthand the war’s devastating impact on the region’s people and communities. Such personal connections guide our approach to many of our long-term commitments.

Present Leadership
In 2006, Kate Wolford became president of The McKnight Foundation, and in 2011 Ted Staryk was elected chair of McKnight’s board of directors. Recent Foundation highlights have included grant and non-grant support for collaborative development planning along the Central Corridor and other transit lines; establishing Youthprise, a new intermediary to accelerate youth leadership and innovation beyond the classroom; stewardship of more than $26 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand McKnight's support for international collaborative crop research; and a multiyear commitment of $100 million to mitigate climate change. During the same timeframe, the board also undertook important transition planning providing a framework for McKnight’s fourth generation (dubbed "G4") of family leaders to establish their own personal, shared vision for future governance. The board also forged new guidelines embracing the crucial role of community (non-family) board members — with all directors sharing equal vote in grantmaking and operations decisions, while also intentionally maintaining McKnight’s unique perspective and identity as a family foundation. And in 2012, the board and staff together developed and launched The McKnight Foundation's Strategic Framework. The framework lays out McKnight's mission, values, and philanthropic approach, providing organizational coherence while honoring diverse program goals and structures.

With Ted and Kate leading the way, McKnight’s work balances long-term commitments with adaptive leadership — essential for addressing complex issues that defy simple or siloed solutions.