Directors and Staff
Quixote Foundation is a small organization with four full-time staff positions and three board members. The staff structure is designed so we can share responsibility for foundation management and for each interest area, and the whole team is involved helping to set our strategic direction.
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Erik M. Hanisch
Erik M. Hanisch expands on a fourth-generation legacy of progressive compassion. He is inspired by a family tradition of helping others, and driven by a strong personal commitment to social and political action. Although his Quixote Foundation colleagues have dubbed him “lofty romantic,” he leads a practical approach to grantmaking that includes a healthy dose of advocacy and encourages diverse organizations to work strategically together. Erik has been a Quixote Foundation board member since 1997, and the foundation’s president since 2002. He has played bass in several bands, all the while secretly wishing he was the drummer. -
Lenore M. Hanisch
Lenore M. Hanisch brings expertise in journalism and event management to her triple roles as Quixote Foundation family member, board member and senior director of engagement & partnerships. Her activism begins by choosing green, socially equitable and progressive ways to manage home and office, and it extends to working closely with grantee organizations, promoting their overall health as well as specific initiatives. Lenore’s colleagues describe her as a “free-range rebel” for the way she combines both courage and conscience. “I am going to save one seven-foot diameter tree, even if I actually have to hug it,” says Lenore of her current priorities. Lenore is a proud member of Women Donors Network and a former board leader of that formidable group of donor activists. -
June Wilson
June Wilson’s talent for translating movement into meaningful patterns is a terrific fit for her work as Quixote Foundation executive director and board member. With some 20 years experience in performing arts organizations, she understands people’s physical and emotional interactions within a literal, conceptual or practical space and can quickly translate what she sees into strategic systems. In addition to serving as CEO, COO and holding other nonprofit leadership positions, June has been an independent dancer, choreographer, advisor, NEA panelist and board volunteer. Her colleagues swear she inhabits a trio of mutable roles as “mother/daughter/sister,” encouraging their achievement in deeply empathetic ways. June’s giggle is one of the greatest sounds ever heard around Quixote Foundation.
So glad to meet you!