Benjamin Shute, Jr.

Benjamin R. Shute, Jr., is program director for the Fund's Democratic Practice grantmaking program in the United States.  He joined the Fund in 1980, was secretary from 1982 until March, 2009, and from 1992 until 1999 also served as treasurer.  He  directed the Fund's program on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector until that program was phased out in 2003.  

Mr. Shute is a trustee of The Interchurch Center and of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund; a director of PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement); and an emeritus trustee of Trinity School (New York), where from 2003 until 2006 he was president of the board.  From 1994 until 2006 he chaired the Governing Council of the Rockefeller Archive Center.  He has previously served as a director of Independent Sector, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, and the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers; as a member of the board of advisors of New York University Law School's National Center on Philanthropy and the Law; and as an elected director of the general alumni association of Phillips Exeter Academy. He has also been a member of the Advisory Committee for the Grantmaking School (Grand Valley State University, Michigan), of the Council on Foundations Advisory Committee for Executive Programs, and of Independent Sector's Building Value Together Steering Committee.

Prior to joining the Fund, he was a teacher and administrator in independent schools, serving as assistant headmaster and principal of the Upper School at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., and in a variety of teaching and administrative positions at Emma Willard School, Troy, New York; St. Mary's Hall, San Antonio, Texas; and Worcester Academy, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Mr. Shute holds a master of arts in teaching degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a bachelor of arts degree from Harvard College.