The flagship foundation of America’s richest family has a new leader.
Stephanie Dodson Cornell, a serial social entrepreneur who most recently worked at Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, was announced last week as the Walton Family Foundation’s new executive director. By all indications, she marks a both continuation of classic themes of Walton philanthropy — enterprise, education, environment — and a potential step by one of the nation’s largest grantmakers toward nonprofit-friendly practices like unrestricted funding and sabbaticals.
Social enterprises have both formed the foundation of her professional life and were central to attracting the Waltons. Board chair Annie Priotti’s welcome note, and the Stanford MBA’s official bio, emphasize her experience cofounding three social ventures: Strategic Grant Partners, Project Healthy Children (now Sanku), and the Maranyundo Initiative.
That journey started with a short trip to Honduras, which led her and her then-husband to found the first of three social enterprises, Project Healthy Children. Now known as Sanku, the nonprofit sought to ensure mothers and children had sufficient folic acid to prevent health problems, and now works in multiple countries on providing micronutrients to children.
She later cofounded a foundation and pro bono consulting firm supporting children and families in Massachusetts, Strategic Grant Partners, which made more than $88 million grants before closing its doors, according to its website. Finally, she helped start an academic support program and girls school in Rwanda, the Maranyundo Initiative, which provides scholarships, teachers’ salaries, college prep, STEM programs and more in the East African country.
Children, clearly, have been a motivating force throughout Cornell’s career. But the above account only scratches the surface of her varied experiences, which include studying English and environmental studies at Oberlin and leadership at Harvard.
Cornell will replace former Unicef USA head Caryl Stern, who announced her departure last October after three years at the Bentonville-based funder, which is one of the nation’s top 15 grantmakers, according to FoundationMark.
She will be based in Denver, where several family members live and focus their personal philanthropy. A group of Waltons also bought the Broncos, the city’s NFL team, last year. Cornell will also spend significant time in the foundation’s offices in Bentonville, Arkansas; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C., according to a spokesperson.
Here are five things to know about Stephanie Dodson Cornell that you won’t find on her foundation bio.
1. She’s served on an absurd number of boards
Cornell has helped a lot of organizations make governance decisions. Her foundation bio lists her current service on the advisory boards of the Elevate Prize and One8 Foundation. But that’s far from the whole list. Cornell is also a board member for the mental health organization Fathers’ UpLift and refugee group Humanity Rises, and she’s listed among the judges and advisors for entrepreneur support network Equal Innovation.
Over the years, she’s served on more than 30 boards, according to a spokesperson. Past service includes many groups focused on issues for which Walton is best known, like education (Healthy Learners, TeachUnited), agriculture (Kheyti), environment (Amazon Conservation Team), economic opportunity (Merit America) and rural communities (Center on Rural Innovation).
Yet her board and advising experience goes far beyond those topics. She’s helped guide groups working on youth homelessness (Y2Y Network), food access (No Kid Hungry), mental health (Crisis Text Line) and migration (International Refugee Assistance Project). The list could go on and on.
2. She’s suffered burnout — and believes in funding sabbaticals
In an extended LinkedIn post early this year, she wrote about how deeply she loved her past eight years of work as Managing Director at Draper Richards Kaplan, and how it was nevertheless essential for her to take time off to recuperate. She thinks philanthropy should help all nonprofit leaders do the same.
“The problem is that I am taking this break from a place of privilege,” she wrote. “Rest that serves each of us and our sector should be available to everyone.” She urged fellow funders to support sabbaticals and consider “building sane grant timelines and metrics to prevent a constant 50-yard dash.”
With nonprofit workers still recovering from COVID era burnout, not to mention their historically abysmal pay, Cornell’s new position atop one of the country’s largest foundations — and her Vu Le-like stance on these issues — could help set a new tone in the sector.
3. She’s got funder organizing chops
Not only has Cornell helped call the shots at a multitude of nonprofits, she’s worked to organize fellow funders. Specifically, she formerly served on the executive committee for Big Bang Philanthropy, a group of around 18 funders, many based abroad, that all spend at least $1 million a year to address international poverty.
She’s also tried to launch a fund focused on equity, according to one current bio. “Stephanie Dodson Cornell is in the startup phase of raising a philanthropic fund to provide financial and operating support to U.S.-based organizations led by women of color leaders,” reads her profile at the Elevate Prize. A spokesman indicated it was an “exploratory role.” No word on whether that project will continue.
4. She’s an advocate for “unrestricted, early-stage” funding
In a 2017 article in Stanford Social Innovation Review, Cornell told the story of the launch of Crisis Text Line, one of the myriad groups she’s served as a board member. Unrestricted, early-stage funding made it possible for the group to go from an idea to receiving 52 million texts in just four years. It is difficult to know how much unrestricted support Walton or any foundation provides, let alone early stage funding, but it will be interesting to see if her beliefs noticeably shift the foundation’s practices.
5. She donates to Democrats, with some exceptions
She’s long backed Democrats in races around the country. Since 2020 alone, she’s sent checks of $250 to $500 to Texas congressional candidate Sima Ladjevardian, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, Maine U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, and senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet of Colorado, among others.
She’s also backed some super PACs, mostly with donations of around $1,000, including the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, the Trump response group Indivisible Action, and Forward Majority Action, a group working for a Democratic majority in state legislatures.
But her largest known political contribution by far came in 2018, when she sent $50,000 to Wyoming Strong, a single-candidate super PAC backing her ex-husband, David Dodson, who finished second that year in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate race.
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