Executive Director

WHITING FOUNDATION Executive Director

New York, NY

Founded in 1971 by Mrs. Flora Ettlinger Whiting, the Whiting Foundation believes in identifying and empowering talented people at just the right moment in their creative and intellectual development to provide far-reaching societal benefits. Since its inception, the Whiting Foundation, a New York-based private nonprofit foundation, has advanced literature and the humanities. Its mission is to provide support for writers, editors, educators, librarians, and archivists who preserve humanity’s shared cultural heritage.

By nurturing new creation and expanding access to art and insight, Whiting helps bring about a world where everyone can engage deeply with the richness of literature and the humanities.

The Foundation’s grantmaking programs are:

The Whiting Award supports early‑career writers every year across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. Whiting winners have gone on to win numerous prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Pulitzer Prize. The Foundation is proud that on the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes list, past Whiting Awardees were represented as winners or finalists in every category the Award supports. Others have gone on to receive the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Obie Award, and Mac Arthur, Guggenheim, and Lannan fellowships.

The program’s longstanding reputation for spotting talent is based on decades of providing early support for authors such as Colson Whitehead, Tony Kushner, Sigrid Nunez, and Tracy K. Smith.

The Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant fosters original, ambitious, deeply researched book‑length projects by providing funding at a crucial mid‑stage of the writing process and holding them to the highest possible standard. Grants are given annually for books under contract with publishers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Like Whiting Awardees, Creative Nonfiction Grant recipients have gone on to win the National Book Award, Pulitzer Prize, and numerous other awards.

Cultural Heritage Preservation grants support the preservation, documentation, and dissemination of timeless contributions to world heritage that are under threat in less well‑resourced countries worldwide, with an emphasis on documentary heritage, such as manuscripts, inscriptions, and archives. Recognizing that irreplaceable cultural heritage is being lost at an alarming rate around the world, the Whiting Foundation has committed to joining the fight to save the treasures of human civilization from both man‑made and natural threats.

High‑School Humanities grants foster deep engagement with rich works of history, philosophy, literature, and the arts, so that students graduate equipped with the beginnings of a mental map of human history and cultural achievement – and with the informed curiosity to continue expanding.

The Foundation is completely self‑supported through an endowment which has grown to approximately $75M. Over the years, the Whiting Foundation has become a convener, a leader, and a partner with other foundations in supporting writers and cultural preservationists.

For more information about the Foundation, visit (Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)..org

The Executive Director serves as the chief professional officer of the organization and reports directly to the Board of Trustees.

The core work of the Executive Director is divided into four parts:

The five‑person Board and its two committees, the Programs Working Group (PWG) and the Investment Committee, each meet formally three times a year. The Executive Director is responsible for facilitating these interactions, ensuring that Trustees have all the information they need to oversee the Foundation’s work, serving as a thought partner, and ensuring that Board decisions are implemented effectively.

The Executive Director directs all programs and activities, including but not limited to celebratory events and ceremonies. Working closely with the Resident Directors and Program Officers, the ED ensures that the literary programs are…