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SUSAN
CORNELL WILKES
Founder and President of Adventures in Giving, LLC, Susan Cornell Wilkes has worked with individuals, families, foundations and nonprofits in the United States and abroad in a thirty-year career as a leader and innovator. She is a family member Trustee of the Peter C. Cornell Trust, established in 1949 in Buffalo, New York by her great uncle, father of the great American actress, Katharine Cornell. As well as working closely with numerous corporate and private foundations throughout her career, she was Managing Director of Philanthropy for Family Financial Strategies Inc., an integrated financial services firm for families of wealth, where she served as Executive Director of several family foundations. A broad conceptual thinker, she has also collaborated with community foundations in San Francisco, Buffalo, Little Rock and Minneapolis. A native of Washington, DC and educated at Harvard, Ms. Wilkes launched her career in the independent sector as a co-founder of internationally acclaimed Up With People Inc. A highly effective leader and manager, she has since founded or co-founded ten innovative local and national organizations or programs in San Francisco, Washington D. C., New York, Minnesota and Arkansas, where she collaborated with former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Skilled in mobilizing ideas, resources and diverse groups, she has developed and managed eleven successful nonprofit joint ventures and collaborations, some of which became national models. Ms. Wilkes has twice established and run her own businesses. She has worked extensively on the development of microcredit programs overseas and in the United States. She and her husband Jim Klobuchar, well-known Minnesota columnist, author, mountain climber and adventure travel leader, published a book, “The Miracles of Barefoot Capitalism”, the story of microcredit organizations, clients and programs that they visited and interviewed on three continents. Previously Ms. Wilkes spent two years collaborating with members of the Rockefeller family in an innovative effort to stimulate the creation of venture capital funds to promote positive social impact in Africa and Latin America through profitable investment in entrepreneurship and sustainable economic development. Collaborators in that endeavor included Chase Bank, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch Foundation, Bankers Trust Foundation, Charles Stuart Mott Foundation, Mac Arthur Foundation, the InterAmerican Development Bank, Asia Foundation, Banamex in Mexico, Fondacion Esquel Ecuador, Zimbabwe Progress Fund, Anthuri Fund in South Africa and overseas foundations and families of wealth. Ms. Wilkes has worked in a broad range of philanthropic, international development, education, exchange and business activities in 30 countries. Her leadership roles have placed her at the lectern at home and abroad. Widely published, she is a gifted public speaker, teacher, facilitator and trainer. She is particularly adept in international, strategic and leveraged grantmaking. Ms. Wilkes’ career encompasses multiple aspects of the foundation world, providing her with a broad range of experience and expertise to offer her clients. As a former Board leader or Executive Director of several nonprofits she respects and understands the complexity of nonprofit work and the issues faced in delivering services in a changing world. She has been a passionate advocate of education, the arts, solutions for social and human problems and global cooperation. In business, she has learned disciplines that support successful foundations and nonprofits in their work. Perhaps most telling for her clients, as a Trustee of The Peter C. Cornell Trust she is experienced in working with individuals and families to design well-run philanthropy programs in which every dollar counts and donors are fulfilled. Susan Cornell Wilkes, President Adventures in Giving, LLC 601 Carlson Parkway, Suite 1050 Minnetonka, Minnesota 55305 952.475.6326 scwilkes@adventuresingiving.com |