Rachel Garbow Monroe began her term as President of the Weinberg Foundation in February of 2010. Monroe joined the Foundation in 2005 as the organization’s first Chief Operating Officer. During her tenure at the Foundation, significant changes have taken place including retention of a new team of more than 20 professional staff to execute the work of the Foundation as well as the creation and launch of:

• Weinberg Foundation’s Annual Community Gathering (more than 900 guests attended last year)
• Israel Mission Alumni Scholars Program (including more than 400 leaders, mostly from the State of Maryland)
• Annual Employee Giving Program (last year, Foundation employees made $180,000 in grant recommendations which were awarded at a special luncheon for the nonprofit grant recipients)
• Maryland Small Grants Program (which has granted more than $13 million to several hundred Maryland nonprofits during its first five years)

More recently, in the summer of 2011, Monroe helped conceive and launch the Baltimore Elementary and Middle School Library Project (The Weinberg Library Project).This initiative, involving nearly 30 businesses, nonprofits, and government partners, works with Baltimore City Public Schools to design, build, equip, and staff new or renovated libraries in selected elementary and middle schools. The Weinberg Foundation donated $1 million, and partners contributed an additional $3 million. Three new libraries are expected to be completed by August – September 2012. A fourth school is under construction and will open a year later. As a result of the overwhelming success of the projects, the Foundation has made a commitment to a second year of funding four libraries. More information can be found on the project’s new website, www.baltimorelibraryproject.org.

Looking farther ahead, the Foundation seeks to use learning from its $8.4 million Weinberg Caregiver Initiative (14 programs for family and other non-paid caregivers), which is now in its third and final year, as well as a new $2.5 million pilot program in New York City to improve the quality of training and employment of paid caregivers. Recognizing the critical need for these services will only multiply in the years ahead, the Weinberg Foundation aspires to create the best direct-service and training models for all paid and unpaid caregivers serving older adults as well as adults with disabilities and/or special needs. The Foundation aims to make Baltimore and all of Maryland the best place to be a caregiver and a care receiver by 2017.

Monroe’s previous professional roles include serving as the Chief Operating Officer for The Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, the Worldwide Director of Marketing for the international architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and as the marketing manager for the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago. For five years, Monroe served as an adjunct professor at The Johns Hopkins University teaching a graduate nonprofit marketing course at the University’s Institute for Policy Studies. Previous volunteer leadership roles include serving on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Ronald McDonald House of Maryland, the Timber Grove Elementary PTA, and the marketing committee of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

She was recognized by The Daily Record as a 2010 Influential Marylander, as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women three times (2011, 2009, and 2007) which placed Rachel in the “Circle of Excellence”, and “40 Under 40” by the Baltimore Business Journal (2006).

Monroe earned a B.A. from Northwestern University and an MM (MBA) from the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she majored in marketing and nonprofit management. Monroe is married with three children.