Laurie Lang Joins Project Angel Food as CEO

Project Angel Food named Laurie Lang as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1.

“Project Angel Food has been a tireless championof vital nourishment and hope throughout Los Angeles County for nearly 25 years, and I welcome the opportunity to help set its vision for the future,” said Lang. “With ‘food as medicine’ a tenet of the agency’s work, I look forward to further communicating the key role that nutrition plays in better health – and the impact that Project Angel Food is having on people struggling with life-threatening illnesses throughout our community. I commit to our supporters, volunteers, local leaders and, most importantly, those individuals to whom we provide an essential life-saving service that I will work to ensure Project Angel Food honors our long-standing mantra of ‘for Life, for Love, for as long as it takes.’” 

Before joining Project Angel Food, Lang served as president for BrandCentrics Consulting, as senior vice president of Strategic Marketing for The Walt Disney Company, and as executive director for Disney’s “Disney Learning Partnership” program, which involved the management of a $20 million philanthropic portfolio to support the nation’s teachers and schools. Most recently, she served as associate vice president for Marketing and Communications at The Music Center, where she developed and implemented a comprehensive rebranding strategy to revitalize the center. Lang has a graduate degree in Business Administration from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

In addition to her professional experiences, Lang has served on the nonprofit boards of Free Arts for Abused Children and Virginia Avenue Project, and has lent her support to The Philanthropic Initiative, LA Universal Preschool Initiative, The Afterschool Alliance, and others as a valued leader.

“With her breadth of experience, Laurie Lang is the ideal person to oversee the growth and increased impact of Project Angel Food,” said Project Angel Food’s chairman of the Board of Directors, Robert Bauer. “With her creative and strategic thinking, the Board and staff are excited about working with Laurie to ensure Project Angel Food continues to provide life-sustaining nourishment to some of the most vulnerable members of our community – and to explore ways that we could be of even greater service to those in need.”

“The Greater Los Angeles community is well-aware that we provide meal services to people struggling with HIV/AIDS, but what might surprise many is that more than 18% of our clients today are battling some form of cancer, more than 15% of our clients are at end stage renal disease, or that more than 5% of our clients are inflicted with emphysema, and more than 7% have congestive heart failure,” said Bauer. “Over our 24 years of service, we have expanded our service to the people of Los Angeles County and, with Laurie at the helm, will continue to explore ways that we can further contribute to a healthy and vibrant community.”

Project Angel Food cooks and delivers 600,000 nutritious meals each year, free of charge, to the homes of men, women and children affected by HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. In 2013, 2,200 people, ranging in age from 16 to 97, will receive service, with 30% Hispanic, 30% African-American, and 30% Caucasian. Women represent 42% of all those who receive service.  Every year, more than 3,500 individuals volunteer at Project Angel Food, contributing 42,000 hours to all aspects of the agency’s work.

Lang assumes the post from Margaret Steele, who has led Project Angel Food for the past five years and oversaw the launch of social enterprise initiatives, increased financial stability, grew the involvement of students in the volunteer program, and expanded service in the broader health community. Steele is departing to spend more time with her teenage children and will have worked closely with Lang to ensure a smooth transition.

Sunlight Foundation Supports Data Ecosystem

The Sunlight Foundation is the recipient of a new $4 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to further ongoing work in bringing technology-driven transparency and accountability to government. The grant will also the Washington, D.C.-based organization to serve as a cornerstone in the Knight Foundation’s open government grant making.

Over the next three years, Sunlight will use the Knight Foundation support to make more government data accessible, build tools to bring that data to the public and share with the growing open government community lessons learned from our work. These funds are the second-largest foundation grant received by Sunlight since its founding in 2006. 

 

“While the ‘open data ecosystem’ is doing exciting things and expanding rapidly, there still remains a disconnect among the public and private sectors,” said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the Sunlight Foundation. “Knight’s commitment to help strengthen this community allows Sunlight to play a fundamental leadership role integrating all who work in this sphere from policy makers and data providers to civic hackers and government reformers to newcomers not yet part of this movement.”

 

“This investment goes one step further in applying technology to help people get the information they need and break down barriers to participation,” said Michael Maness, vice president for journalism and media innovation at Knight Foundation. “Sunlight’s work will help improve access to government data, but also create a standard for turning that data into valuable information.” 

 

The grant covers four main activities of the Sunlight Foundation’s work in supporting the open data ecosystem:

 

1. Improve data sets and tools

The grant will allow Sunlight to improve the interoperability, usability and expand how we gather and use data around legislative committee activity in Congress, state spending records and local government proceedings, just to name a few.

 

2. Strengthen partnerships

From established groups to regional organizations and other nonprofits and media outlets, Sunlight will build partnerships with these key actors and conduct trainings and provide hands-on expertise in how to nurture open government activities at the municipal level. 

 

3. Build knowledge base

The grant gives Sunlight the ability to develop a team of designers, software developers, journalists and policy experts to evaluate the successes and failures of practices and tools within the field of open government data.

 

4. Share best practices

Through this grant, Sunlight will share the best practices and human-centered design lessons learned from this work and set priorities for the opengov community.

 

Sunlight is a nonpartisan, nonprofit supported by foundations and individuals, including Omidyar Network, Rockefeller Family Fund, Hewlett Foundation, Google.org and co-founder Mike Klein. This is the third grant received from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; previous support was for a series of National Data Apps. 

The Sunlight Foundation is a nonpartisan nonprofit that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Visit SunlightFoundation.com to learn more about Sunlight’s projects.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.