What is the Wisdom Council? The Wisdom Council is an advisory group of 13 bold truthtellers and advocates, who will provide expert guidance as RWJF engages in an institutional Truth, Repair and Transformation (TRT) process. The members bring deep historical understanding of and expertise in healthcare, public health, community organizing, philanthropy, and the field of institutional truth, repair and transformation. They will partner with RWJF in the early stages of our truth process, so we can make bolder practice shifts that enable RWJF to be a more equitable and accountable philanthropy and more fully live into our shared purpose and values.
What will the Wisdom Council do? This Council is the next step in RWJF’s Truth, Repair and Transformation process, which seeks to understand the origins, growth, and distribution of our wealth, as well as the culture that enables it, and use what we learn to repair and transform how we work. The Wisdom Council will help review themes and findings identified by our historian and TRT staff workgroups, and inform the design of Public Listening Sessions to engage with partners and communities impacted by identified themes. The Council will provide recommendations based on what we learn in our historical research and community sessions, that will in turn shape how the Foundation engages in repair and transformation in the years to come.
Read more about the Wisdom Council and the Foundation's work on equity and justice from our Vice President of Equity and Culture, Fiona Kanagasingam, and Assistant Vice President for Equity and Social Justice, Maisha Simmons.
Council Member Perspectives
The philanthropy sector has a long history of being associated with the concentration of wealth and capital in a few hands. Even as it has claimed to be in the public interest, it has often replicated dominant structures of systemic racism, sexism, and discrimination. Serving on this council gives me a chance to contribute towards a more inclusive and just transformation of the sector in which I have spent most of my professional career.
Kavita Ramdas, founder and principal, KNR Sisters
In order to bring about effective systems change in a very important organization, the Wisdom Council will be able to effectively guide the Foundation to come up with appropriate responses and opportunities in order to address historical wrongs.
Keith Jones, president and CEO, SoulTouchin’ Experiences, LLC
Philanthropy’s history of wealth generation presents a unique opportunity and responsibility. Intentional or not, all the stats we quote about disparities in our communities happened because of a series of conscious decisions made by very real people. We cannot talk about wealth in this country without talking about racial injustice. I think if foundation histories were more widely known, it would add context to the power dynamics within the sector and allow for meaningful and radical progress.
Katherine Ponce, senior research manager for special projects, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
I am honored to be a part of the Foundation’s Truth, Repair and Transformation Wisdom Council because our experiences at the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust have shown us that real transformation requires looking internally first. There is no trust without truth, and the Trust’s truth and repair journey about the origin of our funds and where we may have caused harm has strengthened our work and our grantee relationships. It is inspiring to see RWJF, a critical leader in the field, embark on this process. I look forward to playing a role on the Wisdom Council, and I am hopeful that RWJF will inspire other funders and organizations on this journey as well.
Dr. Laura Gerald, president, Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
I decided to join the TRT Wisdom Council because the practice of recognizing harm and repairing relationships is central to all social change work. This practice will be a helpful model for our sector which often needs to contend with the shadow sides of our origins, past grantmaking decisions, and investment approaches. My hope is that those people and communities harmed by these practices will find relief and respect in this work. It is a privilege to walk alongside the RWJF team through this work.
Dr. Carmen Rojas, president and CEO, Marguerite Casey Foundation
I truly believe that the wellbeing of all of us as humans and more than human beings exists in a web of interconnectedness. Living a good way of life means that we must work to heal the harms associated with colonization, systemic oppression, and other injustices that truly hurt everyone. As Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer attests, 'all flourishing is mutual.' Looking back in a spirit of repair and healing in this collective way is a difficult but critical endeavor.
Melissa Walls, PhD, MS, professor at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
I am honored to have been invited to serve as part of this diverse community and appreciate the courage that the leadership of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is demonstrating during these turbulent times.
Dr. Gail C. Christopher, executive director, National Collaborative for Health Equity
The TRT Wisdom Council is one of the most inspiring initiatives I've seen undertaken by a major philanthropic organization. I'm honored to support RWJF in its commitment to being accountable to historically marginalized communities. I applaud RWJF in its leadership in intentionally doing its part to ensure that past harms are confronted and addressed, as well as its role in serving as a model for the type of restorative justice that should be universally implemented.
Jacqueline Patterson, founder and executive director, Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership
I joined the TRT Wisdom Council because it resonates deeply with my lifelong commitment to social justice and equity. By bringing my expertise in social justice investing and my personal experiences with systemic inequities to this work, I hope to support RWJF in creating meaningful, lasting impact for historically marginalized communities. The TRT Wisdom Council offers a unique opportunity to engage in truth-telling, repair, and accountability—essential elements for sustaining change that leads to lasting health equity and justice. Through this process, we can help RWJF examine its legacy, learn from past missteps, and chart a path forward that truly centers the voices and needs of those most impacted by structural racism and other barriers to health.
Rachel J. Robasciotti, founder and co-CEO of Adasina Social Capital
Council Member Biographies
Dr. Gail C. Christopher, executive director, National Collaborative for Health Equity, is an award-winning social change agent and author with expertise in the social determinants of health and well-being and related public policies. A prolific writer and presenter, Dr. Christopher is the author, co-author, and has contributed to 14 books, hundreds of articles, presentations, publications, and more. She is known for her pioneering work to infuse holistic health and diversity concepts into public sector programs and policy discourse.
She retired from her role as senior advisor and vice president at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she was the driving force behind the America Healing initiative and the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation effort. In 1996 she was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She chaired the Board of the Trust for America’s Health from 2012-2022.
In 2019, Dr. Christopher became a Senior Scholar with George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being and became the Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity. In 2021, she was elected by the APHA Governing Council to serve as the APHA Honorary Vice President for the United States. In 2023, the American Journal of Health Promotion honored Dr. Christopher as one of the 10 Most Influential Women Scholars in Health Promotion.
Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA (Pawnee) is the Executive Vice President of the Seattle Indian Health Board and the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, a tribal epidemiology center. She works to support the health and well-being of urban Indian communities and tribal nations across the United States. Abigail has been recognized as a national leader in decolonizing data for Indigenous people, by Indigenous people.
Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project: A Resource Hub for Black Frontline Climate Justice Leadership. The mission of the Chisholm Legacy Project is rooted in a Just Transition Framework, serving as a vehicle to connect Black communities on the frontlines of climate justice with the resources to actualize visions.
Prior to the launch of the Chisholm Legacy Project, Patterson served as the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program for over a decade. During her tenure, she founded and implemented a robust portfolio which included serving the state and local leadership whose constituencies consisted of hundreds of communities on the frontlines of environmental injustice. She led a team in designing and implementing a portfolio to support political education and organizing work executed by NAACP branches, chapters, and state conferences.
Patterson has dedicated her career to intersectional approaches to systems change. Working with frontline communities from Kampala, Uganda to Kansas City, USA to Kingston, Jamaica, her passion for social justice led her to serve as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United; Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid; Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health, Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica.
Patterson holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Center for Earth Ethics, Environmental Justice Movement Fellowship, and the Hive Fund for Gender and Climate Justice, on the Governance Assemblies for Mosaic Momentum, and Collectrify, as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, the Bill Anderson Fund, Movement Strategy Center, the Just Solutions Collective, the National Black Workers Center Project, and Ceres.
In March 2024, Patterson was honored to be named as one of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year as well as receiving the Time Magazine Earth Award.
Dr. Laura Gerald is president of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, one of North Carolina’s largest private foundations. A pediatrician who was born and raised in rural North Carolina, she has decades of leadership experience in health care delivery, rural health, philanthropy, and public health. Under Dr. Gerald’s leadership, the Trust has deepened its commitment to racial equity and systems change and announced in 2022 it will divest from tobacco and invest $100 million of the foundation’s corpus in socially responsible funds supporting North Carolina residents. Prior to joining the Trust, she served in critical roles focused on statewide health improvement including serving as the North Carolina State Health Director.
Dr. Gerald holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, a medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University School of Public Health. She currently is the Board Chair of Grantmakers in Health, on the Board of Trustees for Winston-Salem State University, and adjunct faculty at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Gerald is a board-certified pediatrician and fellow in American Academy of Pediatrics.
Keith Jones is the president and CEO of SoulTouchin’ Experiences, LLC. It is an organization aimed at bringing a perspective to the issues of access, inclusion, and empowerment, which affect him as well as others who are persons with and without disabilities.
To achieve this multicultural, cross-disability education and outreach efforts, he collaborates and conducts trainings with the purpose of strengthening efforts to provide services and information for people with disabilities. The issues he tackles are wide ranging from immigration, criminal justice reform, healthcare, and environmental justice just to name a few.
Paralleling with his policy and social justice work, Mr. Jones is a multi-talented artist who, along with Leroy Moore and Rob Temple, founded Krip Hop Nation, which is an international collection of artists with disabilities. Krip Hop Nation is currently celebrating 14 years with the recent Emmy Award winning success of their title song for the Netflix documentary of the Paralympic Games, Rising Phoenix and its critical acclaimed sound track.
Dr. Michelle Morse is the Acting Health Commissioner and Chief Medical Officer of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYC Health). She leads the agency’s work in bridging public health and health care to reduce health inequities and serves as a key liaison to clinicians and clinical leaders across New York City. She previously served as Deputy Commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness where she led place-based and cross-cutting health equity programs.
Dr. Morse is an internal medicine and public health doctor who works to achieve health equity through global solidarity, social medicine and anti-racism education, and activism. She is a general internal medicine physician, part-time hospitalist at Kings County Hospital, Co-Founder of EqualHealth, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Morse’s continued commitment to advancing health equity and justice is informed by her experience in leadership roles as Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Partners In Heath, as a Soros Equality Fellow launching a global Campaign Against Racism and as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy fellow with the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2024, Dr. Morse was named a TIME100Next honoree.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the inaugural Professor of African American Studies and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he directs the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project. He is board chair of the Vera Institute of Justice, and a WGBH contributor to Boston Public Radio. He is the former Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading library and archive of global Black history. He co-hosted the Pushkin Industries podcast Some of My Best Friends Are.
Khalil’s scholarship examines the broad intersections of systemic racism, structural inequality, and democracy in U.S. History. He is the award-winning author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America and recently co-chaired a National Academies of Science study, Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice. His writing and scholarship have been featured in national print and broadcast media outlets, such as the New Yorker, Washington Post, The Nation, National Public Radio, PBS Newshour, Moyers and Company, MSNBC, and the New York Times, which includes his sugar essay for The 1619 Project. He has appeared in several feature-length documentaries, including Amend: The Fight for America, the Oscar-nominated 13th, and Slavery by Another Name (2012).
Khalil serves on the boards of The Museum of Modern Art, Cure Violence Global, The New York Historical Society, and The Nation magazine, as well as the advisory boards of Common Justice, The HistoryMakers and the Lapidus Center for the Study of Transatlantic Slavery. He holds honorary doctorates from The New School and Bloomfield College, and a Distinguished Service Medal from Columbia University’s Teachers College. He is an award-winning teacher and has received several awards for his commitment to public engagement, including Ebony Power 100, The Root 100 of Black Influencers, ERASE Racism’s Abraham Krasnoff Courage and Commitment Award, BPI Chicago’s Champion of the Public Interest Award, The Fortune Society’s Game Changer Award, Crain’s New York Business magazine 40 under 40.
A native of Chicago’s South Side, Khalil graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Economics and then joined Deloitte as a staff accountant until entering graduate school. He earned his Ph.D. in U.S. History from Rutgers University and started his academic career at Indiana University.
As the research manager for Special Projects, Katherine Ponce engages in both qualitative and quantitative research projects that explore NCRP's narrative in the philanthropic sector as they advance its mission to see more support and resources go to social movements. This includes evaluating the barriers to receiving funding for Black communities, supporting analysis for the lack of funding in the South, and measuring regressive philanthropic tactics. Most recently, Ponce was the project lead for Cracks in the Foundation: Philanthropy's Role in Reparations for Black People in the DMV. This report illuminates how the labor and genius of Black people has been exploited to build philanthropic wealth in the Washington, D.C. region.
Katherine earned a dual degree, an MBA in Social Impact and an MS in Global Health Policy and Management, in 2021 from the Heller School at Brandeis University, and before that a BA from Towson University in 2015. She is also a current fellow of ABFE's Connecting Leaders Fellowship Program.
Kavita N. Ramdas, founding consultant at KNR Sisters, is a globally-recognized advocate for gender equity and justice. She is an inspirational speaker, frequent writer, and commentator on the challenges facing philanthropy and civil society as they seek to more effectively integrate intersectional equity in their work to advance equitable and sustainable development for all.
Kavita’s deep experience in philanthropy and the non-profit sector includes senior positions with private, public, and family foundations. She has extensive governance expertise, having served on the boards of academic, philanthropic, and social sector organizations. She served briefly as head of a family foundation, after three years as the Director of the Women’s Rights Program at the Open Society Foundations (OSF). During her time at OSF, the foundation made its largest ever investment in gender justice with a $100 million commitment to the Generation Equality Forum in July 2021.
Rachel J. Robasciotti is the founder and co-CEO of Adasina Social Capital. The firm’s social justice investment strategy has positioned her as a leader in finance for integrating racial, gender, economic, and climate justice into investment portfolios. Her passion for social justice is rooted in her background as a Black, queer woman raised in a community that struggled for safety and financial security.
Among her many contributions to the investment industry, Rachel coined the phrase Social Justice Investing in 2018 and is recognized as the force behind its adoption across the industry.
In 2023, Rachel was honored to receive the InvestmentNews Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Award and was named to the Root 100 List of the most influential African Americans.A prominent thought leader, Rachel has testified before the United States Senate on financial markets and is frequently featured in the media. She is a sought-after keynote speaker at industry conferences and guest lecturer at leading universities.
Beyond Adasina, Rachel holds multiple governance positions in philanthropy, often guiding efforts to align endowments with organizations' missions and core values.
Dr. Carmen Rojas is the president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Under her leadership, the foundation launched the prestigious Freedom Scholar award, committed to ensuring that a majority of MCF’s endowment is overseen by diverse managers, and since starting in 2020 granted more than $130M in funding to dozens of organizations doing the hard work of shifting power to those people who have long been excluded from having it. Prior to MCF, Dr. Rojas was the co-founder and CEO of The Workers Lab, an innovation lab that partners with workers to develop new ideas that help them succeed and flourish. For more than 20 years, she has worked with foundations, financial institutions, and nonprofits to improve the lives of working people across the country.
Dr. Rojas sits on the boards of Nonprofit Quarterly, Blue Ridge Labs, and San Francisco Federal Reserve's Community Advisory Council as well as the Confluence Racial Equity Initiative Advisory Committee. She was also recently named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in U.S. Philanthropy,” by Inside Philanthropy.
She holds a PhD in city and regional planning from UC Berkeley and was a Fulbright Scholar in 2007.
Melissa Walls, PhD (Anishinaabe), is a Bloomberg Professor of American Health in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins University and Co-Director of the Center for Indigenous Health. She strives to work in authentic collaborative relationships with Indigenous communities to advance health and well-being in culturally grounded, culturally safe ways. She has engaged in Indigenous health research partnerships for over 20 years on topics including mental health epidemiology, substance use prevention and mental health promotion, and understanding strength and thriving in the face of ongoing assaults related to colonization.
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. He has spent the past 25 years speaking to audiences in all 50 states, on over 1500 college and high school campuses, at hundreds of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the country.
Wise has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, media, law enforcement, military, and medical industry professionals on methods for dismantling racial inequity in their institutions, and has provided anti-racism training to educators and administrators nationwide and internationally, in Canada and Bermuda.
Wise is the author of nine books, including his latest, Dispatches from the Race War (City Lights Books). Other books include Under the Affluence, Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority and Colorblind (all from City Lights Books); his highly-acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, (recently updated and re-released by Soft Skull Press); Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; and Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.
Named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne Reader, Wise has contributed chapters or essays to over 25 additional books and his writings are taught in colleges and universities across the nation. His essays have appeared on Alternet, Salon, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, The Root, Black Commentator, BK Nation and Z Magazine among other popular, professional and scholarly journals.
From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.
Wise has been featured in several documentaries, including two from the Media Education Foundation. “White Like Me: Race, Racism and White Privilege in America,” which he co-wrote and co-produced, has been called “A phenomenal educational tool in the struggle against racism,” and “One of the best films made on the unfinished quest for racial justice,” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University, and Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, respectively. "The Great White Hoax: Donald Trump & the Politics of Race & Class in America" features Wise explores how American political leaders of both parties have been tapping into white anxiety, stoking white grievance, and scapegoating people of color for decades to divide and conquer working class voters and shore up political support.
Wise also appears alongside legendary scholar and activist, Angela Davis, in the 2011 documentary, “Vocabulary of Change.” In this public dialogue between the two activists, Davis and Wise discussed the connections between issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and militarism, as well as inter-generational movement building and the prospects for social change. More recently, he appeared in Chelsea Handler's Netflix documentary Hello Privilege, It’s Me Chelsea on white privilege and racism in the United States.
Wise appears regularly on CNN and MSNBC to discuss race issues and was featured in a 2007 segment on 20/20. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans. He is also the host of the podcast, Speak Out with Tim Wise.
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