Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation President and CEO, Tanuja Dehne, Stepping Down After Transformational Leadership to Center the Foundation’s Work on Racial Justice
Today, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation announced that Tanuja M. Dehne will step down as President and CEO on April 1 after a tenure that is recognized for firmly solidifying the Foundation’s vision for a just and equitable New Jersey.
Anchored in Our Vision, A New Home in Newark for Dodge Foundation
After spending the last few years listening and learning but also steadily moving our funding to support racial justice organizations, we are strongly anchored in our vision and mission.
Newark Community Street Team was one of the organizations selected to join Dodge Foundation’s inaugural cohort of the Momentum Fund. NCST was founded as Newark’s community-based violence reduction strategy.
In January of this year, the Dodge Foundation announced our new program priorities centered on racial justice, which is the focus of our grantmaking now and into the future. Today, we are pleased to announce our first grants of 2023, which are our first grants under our new program priorities, to organizations across New Jersey.
In 2016, the Dodge Foundation began its equity journey in earnest, culminating in a strategic plan centered on a vision for an equitable New Jersey. Building on the lessons learned over the past few years, we are entering into 2023 with a strengthened commitment and launching new program priorities centered on racial justice, which is the focus of the Dodge Foundation going forward.
The Dodge Foundation is excited to welcome Malcolm McClain as Program Officer, growing the Program Team’s capacity and ability to support our partners. Malcolm brings practical programmatic experience and deep research skills that will advance our vision of a more just and equitable New Jersey.
In our most recent round of funding, the Dodge Foundation made two major, multimillion-dollar grants to projects focused on power building and economic resilience.
Over the past few years, the Dodge Foundation has been an organization in transformation. We are an organization aspiring to become an antiracist institution. We are an organization working to increasingly center racial equity and justice in all aspects of our work. We are an organization that is listening and learning. What we’ve learned so far will guide us in our work to come.
In November, the Dodge Foundation convened our inaugural Momentum Fund cohort. Launched in the fall of 2021, the Momentum Fund used a new community-engaged process to select and fund ten emerging organizations who are employing innovative strategies to address root causes of structural racism in New Jersey.
The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation is excited to welcome Ticiana Maloney as Grants Manager and Susan Vega as Controller. Both Ticiana and Susan join our organization with decades of experience across the social sector, and with a deep commitment to advancing our vision of a more just and equitable New Jersey.
In our most recent round of funding, the Dodge Foundation made more than $5 million in grants which served to acknowledge long-standing partners and collaborators, support new partners who are driving racial equity and justice, and respond to the real-time issues and crises facing people across the State of New Jersey. These grants represent our purposeful efforts to support and recognize the impact of years-long partners and institutions, while also strengthening and growing our support to new organizations focused and aligned to our new strategic direction of building a just and equitable New Jersey.
The Dodge Foundation is excited to welcome Janna Oberdorf as our new Director of Communications. She comes to the organization with two decades of experience in communications and journalism, and 15 years of experience working in the social sector, with a focus on gender and racial equity.