West Conshohocken, Pa, January 22 - The Connelly Foundation is proud to announce the election of Tom Riley as its new President. Mr. Riley succeeds Josephine C. Mandeville, who has been the organization’s President since the death of the founder John Connelly in 1990. She will continue to serve the foundation as Chair of the Board of Directors.
Prior to being named President, Mr. Riley was Vice President for Strategic Planning at the foundation since 2012. Mr. Riley has had a long career in philanthropy and public policy. He was previously Vice President of the Philanthropy Roundtable in Washington, D.C., and from 2001-2009 was Associate Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, where he served as the principle spokesman for all federal drug control and addiction programs. He writes and speaks frequently about charitable giving, as a contributing editor of Philanthropy magazine, a member of the Strategy Committee of the Alliance for Charitable Reform, and as a board member of many Philadelphia-area nonprofits including the Philadelphia Police Foundation and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Mr. Riley lives in Radnor, PA, with his wife Barbara and their five children.
“I am humbled to have the opportunity to uphold and build upon the legacy that was started by John and Josephine Connelly and which has been stewarded so energetically and faithfully by their daughters, Josephine Mandeville and Emily Riley. This is a very exciting time for Philadelphia, and I look forward to working with our many charitable partners to continue the Connelly Foundation’s mission of improving the quality of life in our great region.”
About the Connelly Foundation:
The Connelly Foundation was founded in 1955 by John and Josephine Connelly. John Connelly achieved remarkable business success as president of Connelly Containers and later Crown Cork and Seal, both manufacturing companies based in Philadelphia. He and his wife Josephine, strongly motivated by their Catholic faith and their love for the Philadelphia region, dedicated their good fortune to helping others. Over the past 63 years the Connelly Foundation has donated over $400 million to nonprofit organizations in the Philadelphia area focusing on education, human services, and the arts. The Connelly Foundation has always placed a particular emphasis on Catholic education, with nearly 10,000 Philadelphia-area students having attended Catholic high schools though the foundation’s Neumann Scholars and Josephine C. Connelly scholarship programs.