Rose Ann Cleveland served for many years as Executive Director of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation—a private foundation awarding $16 to $20 million yearly in grants to nonprofits working in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. She joined the Foundation in August 2005, as Program Officer in the arts and humanities, and served as Interim Acting Executive Director from September 2005 until May 2006. She retired in fall 2017, after more than twelve years with the Foundation.
Previously, she worked for Washington Performing Arts as Director of Programming, overseeing a multi-disciplinary season of performances, residencies, commissioning projects, and education programs in venues throughout the metropolitan area. Earlier, Dr. Cleveland developed performance series and educational programs for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland (“The Clarice”). In addition, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of a nonfiction book on writer Caroline Gordon.
Dr. Cleveland chaired the board of directors of the national affinity group Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) from January 2013 through December 2014. Earlier, she was GIA’s Treasurer and headed its Finance Committee. She served on the board of directors of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers (WRAG) from 2016 to 2017. During a previous term on the WRAG board, from 2008 to 2013, she also chaired the group for two years. Dr. Cleveland led the Arts and Special Events Committee and was a member of the Host Committee for Independent Sector’s National Conference, which took place in Washington, D.C., in November 2016.
In recent years, she has served on the local advisory boards for the Foundation Center and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). In calendar year 2011, she participated in the Shannon Leadership Institute of the Wilder Center for Communities in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is a member of Leadership Greater Washington’s class of 2007.
Rose Ann Cleveland 