Woods Fund Chicago Announces New President

Michelle Morales tapped as first Latina to lead Chicago’s “small but mighty” foundation

CHICAGO, Ill. – Michelle Morales, a nonprofit leader with a background in community organizing and teaching, has been named the new president of Woods Fund Chicago, a grant-making foundation with roots in promoting equal opportunity and community organizing by funding local grass-roots, policy and advocacy organizations.

Morales begins her tenure as Woods Fund Chicago president in November. She currently serves as chief executive officer of Mikva Challenge (Chicago chapter), a leading youth civic engagement nonprofit. Her prior experience includes directing citywide programs to support at-risk youth, co-coordinating a highly visible national campaign to successfully free 14 Puerto Rican political prisoners, and working in alternative education.

“I have always been passionate about service to marginalized communities,” Morales said. “My core values stem from my personal experience as a first-generation, U.S.-born Puerto Rican woman from a working-class background. This has shaped my commitment to working for a better and just world.” Morales, a member of the inaugural cohort of Cultivate, the leadership development program for women of color in Chicago, and Leadership Greater Chicago, was selected by the Woods Fund board of directors after a national search conducted by the Morten Group.

“The Woods Fund board of directors is delighted to have found in Ms. Morales an executive whose experience and passion are so fundamentally aligned with the mission, vision and values of the foundation,” said Ric Estrada, president of Metropolitan Family Services and chair of Woods Fund Chicago’s board. “She is a wonderfully upbeat, experienced, and thoughtful leader, and her life’s work, which she describes as ‘radical community organizing,’ reflects the deep importance of collective voice toward enacting change.”

Since 1993, Woods Fund Chicago has awarded more than $65 million to nearly 500 nonprofit organizations in the Chicago region. Central to its grant-making approach is a belief that systemic change is the only way to eradicate poverty and structural racism, and that people most affected by poverty and racial inequity should lead and participate in the process of addressing issues that directly affect them. Woods Fund is also the administrator of Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Greater Chicago, which promotes healing and racial equity as part of a national and community-centered program supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Morales succeeds Grace Hou, who stepped down earlier this year to be appointed Secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Morales has worked in collaboration with the Mexican, Palestinian and African American communities to “uncover, support and elevate shared issues and campaigns,” she said. “I’m grateful to have been a hands-on organizer as well as the leader of a respected nonprofit. I know how great the need is in communities across our city. Together, we can move mountains through investments and collaboration to achieve a collective vision.”