Tonya Allen
President, McKnight Foundation

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Tonya Allen serves as president of the McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation that seeks to advance a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. McKnight annually grants about $110 million in support equitable communities, a clean energy economy, global food systems, artists and culture bearers, and innovative neuroscience research.
 
Throughout her 25-year career, Allen has been a bridge-builder and a civic diplomat focused on community-led philanthropy and the power of transforming place. With extraordinary persistence, she has worked to bring people together across diverse sectors to catalyze fresh thinking, test new approaches, and advocate for equitable policies and practices that benefit everyone.
 
Allen is co-chair of President’s Council on Impact Investing, consisting of 20 leading foundations with $80 billion under management, committed to advancing market capital for social impact. She is chair emirita for Council on Foundations and Oakland University. Allen’s leadership is well-lauded, and she received the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial Alumni Award, Funders Network’s Nicholas P. Bollman Award, and NAACP’s Great Expectations Award.