PROVIDENCE – Four employees, including three senior executives, will be leaving the Rhode Island Foundation, in a shake-up at the state’s largest philanthropic organization.
Departing by the end of the year will be Karen Voci, senior vice president for program; David Karoff, vice president for grant-making; Rick Schwartz, vice president of communications; and Claude Elliott, a program officer, the Providence Business News yesterday learned.
When asked for comment, Schwartz declined to say whether his or any of the departures were voluntary.
Voci and Karoff, who have headed the foundation’s grant-making division, and Elliot, who has worked in their department, are leaving as the foundation prepares to combine its donor and grant-making divisions into a single unit, Schwartz said.
The organizational shake-up comes as the foundation – whose endowment has been experiencing rapid growth – prepares to widen its focus in 2007.
Also yesterday, the Rhode Island Foundation told PBN that its assets exceed $500 million, for the first time in the organization’s 90-year history.
Next year, Schwartz said, the foundation plans to place more of its grant-making staff at sites across the state, and to launch a nonprofit assistance center.
