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Yvonne Moore worked in her home state of Texas on the delivery side of social services, with victims of child abuse. “I saw the frustration of social service providers dealing with bad laws, uncaring officials, and a lack of funds. I felt that emotionally I was better prepared and could do more good on the administrative and support side of the field.” Moore believed she needed the kind of business-oriented graduate training that she could get at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment.
Moore describes her two years at Milano as perfect preparation for her current career in nonprofit management. She found her teachers inspiring—particularly Bryna Sanger, Dennis Derryck, and Kian Tajbakhsh. The combination of rigorous management training, commitment to social justice, and hands-on experience, she says, was extremely powerful. Through New School connections, she got a part-time job at the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation in New York City. She took the Laboratory in Issue Analysis seminar, which involved working on a project with an actual client. She also took part in a summer seminar in South Africa organized by The New School’s Transregional Center for Democratic Studies. Her capstone project was for a program for homeless youth in New Jersey.
Today, Moore is the executive director of the Daphne Foundation, a private family foundation that provides renewable grants for operating expenses to grassroots community organizations offering services to young people, victims of domestic violence, prison inmates, and immigrants, as well as job training and adult education. The foundation currently has 16 grantees, including organizations in West Africa, and dispenses more than $500,000 yearly. Moore was one of 30 women honored by the National Council for Research on Women in 2012 for outstanding contributions to advancing women’s issues and women’s leadership.