West Conshohocken, Pa, August 24, 2018 - The Connelly Foundation announced today the appointment of Fran Burns as Chief Operating Officer and Tim Durkin as Vice President for Grantmaking. Ms. Burns started her new position on August 20 and Mr. Durkin starts on August 27.
“The Connelly Foundation is pleased to welcome such qualified and talented individuals,” said Tom Riley, president of the Connelly Foundation. “This is a very exciting time for our city and our region. We want to help all Philadelphians share in the good things that are happening here.”
Prior to serving as COO of the Connelly Foundation, Ms. Burns served for over 20 years in the public sector in various leadership positions. She most recently served as COO of the Philadelphia School District, was a member of Superintendent William Hite's core team, and received the 2017 Annual COO Distinguished Service Award from the Council of the Great City Schools. Prior to the school district, she was Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority (PICA), the City’s fiscal oversight board. She also was a Commissioner of the Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) and Executive Director of the Manayunk Development Corporation. Ms. Burns graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in history and a Master in Public Administration. She was honored to serve the 2017-2018 school year as full-time faculty at Villanova University as Professor of Practice in the Department of Public Administration. Ms. Burns graduated from St. Hubert’s High School and has two children in parochial school in Philadelphia.
Mr. Durkin, with experience in both national and local grantmaking, has spent the past 17 years in philanthropy at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Most recently, he has been a Senior Officer in Pew’s Philadelphia Program, Director of its Civic Initiatives, and Pew’s representative on the board of the Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia. At Pew, he coordinated the team’s operations and collaborative projects, and worked with an array of partners to identify and support local civic initiatives that can have a significant, positive impact on the Philadelphia region. Mr. Durkin managed Pew’s investments in a variety of projects including the extension of the Schuylkill River Trail and the transformation of public spaces along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Independence Mall. At the national level, he coordinated investments in survey and demographic research, nonprofit journalism, and public media. Prior to joining Pew, he was a Senior Consultant with the management consultancy Booz-Allen & Hamilton. He holds both a bachelor’s degree in urban studies and sociology, and a master’s degree in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania.
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 thousands of Philadelphia-area students having attended Catholic high schools though the foundation’s Neumann Scholars and Josephine C. Connelly scholarship programs. For more information, please visit www.connellyfdn.org.