India RPCV Mike Maidenberg Named Vice President, Chief Program Officer at Knight Foundation
Mike Maidenberg Named Vice President, Chief Program Officer at Knight Foundation
MIAMI, March 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- Michael Maidenberg, a Pulitzer Prize-winning publisher with the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald for 21 years until his December 2003 retirement, will become vice president and chief program officer at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation April 19.
Maidenberg's appointment by President and CEO Hodding Carter III was approved by the Knight board of trustees at its quarterly meeting today. He replaces Penelope McPhee, who will leave Knight at the end of March after 13 years to become president of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in Atlanta.
Maidenberg will direct an annual payout of $90 million and manage a staff of 25 involved in three programs: Journalism Initiatives; the Community Partners Program, which funds nonprofits in 26 U.S. communities; and the National Venture Fund, which funds innovative leadership and national organizations with the ability to have an impact on the Knight communities.
A Knight trustee since 1999, Maidenberg also sat on the Grants Review Committee. As a trustee and chair of Knight's community advisory committee in Grand Forks, Maidenberg has both shaped and implemented the foundation's Community Partners Program, which makes long-term investments in community-selected funding priorities.
"I could not be happier that a person of Mike's caliber and commitment has agreed to take up the work," said Carter.
"I have been associated with Jack and Jim Knight and their legacy for over 30 years," said Maidenberg. "I deeply believe in the mission of Knight Foundation -- I have seen what it has accomplished in Grand Forks and other communities, and I know its historic importance to journalism worldwide. I can think of no higher calling than to help advance its effectiveness in all its programs."
A career newsman, Maidenberg joined Knight Ridder in 1968 and worked at the Detroit Free Press, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and at corporate headquarters in Miami. He became publisher in Grand Forks in June 1982 and served as publisher and president at the time of his retirement.
The Herald won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for its coverage of the dramatic 1997 Red River floods and subsequent fires that destroyed much of downtown Grand Forks, including the Herald's buildings.
Maidenberg serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Region. He is also a member of the Downtown Leadership Group and the Empire Arts Center. Until joining the Knight board of trustees, he served on Knight Foundation's national Community Initiatives Advisory Committee.
Maidenberg was born in 1942 in Marion, Ind. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1964 and spent two years in the Peace Corps in India. He received a master's from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 1967. The school presented him its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1998.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities.
