Greetings from Will Miller, New President of The Wallace Foundation

As the new president of The Wallace Foundation, I want to introduce myself and let you know how much I look forward to working together with all of you.

Knowledge-focused foundations like Wallace have the potential to play an important role in society. They can provide seed capital for social innovations that might not otherwise be tested. They can generate credible, useful ideas and lessons that advance the fields in which they work. And, through their ability to communicate and convene, they can help encourage the spread of good ideas. These are challenges The Wallace Foundation set for itself more than a decade ago. This approach and the Foundation's track record of substantive progress are a large part of the many reasons I am excited about becoming its president.

As you would know better than most, these challenges can only be met when a foundation joins with skilled partners like yourselves. Wallace's many partners represent school districts, city and state governments, nonprofits, community groups, communication allies, research organizations and technical advisers. We're grateful to be working with each of you.

I'm honored to have the opportunity to help build on the accomplishments of Wallace's founding president, M. Christine DeVita. With each of you, and our talented staff, we will continue to make progress on our current initiatives. These efforts – which include our ongoing work in school leadership and after-school systems, our new endeavor to create more time for learning for disadvantaged children, our investment in arts education, and our venture to help arts organizations expand their audiences – remain highly relevant in this period of fiscal austerity when policymakers and practitioners are looking to spend scarce dollars on tested solutions.

Our mission at Wallace is to expand learning and enrichment opportunities for the nation's disadvantaged children. As we explore new ways in the coming months to fulfill this mission, we'll keep you informed.

I hope to meet many of you in person soon, and to hear your thoughts. In the meantime, feel free to drop me an e-mail. Once again, thanks for being part of this shared effort.

Sincerely,

Will Miller
President
The Wallace Foundation