Melinda Gilmore is director of communications for the Kettering Foundation. She directs all communications in service of the mission, vision, and values of the foundation. She works on the overall communications strategy for the foundation, overseeing print and digital publications, press relations, and digital communications.
Gilmore has worked at the foundation in a variety of capacities and with increasing levels of responsibility, including, most recently, as director of strategic initiatives. She has for many years played a key role in conceptualizing, writing, and editing foundation publications and communications. From 2012-2022, she served as executive editor of the foundation’s periodical, Connections, and from 2019-2023, she was editor of the foundation’s electronic newsletter, News & Notes. Gilmore is the coeditor of Democracy and Civic Life: What Is the Long Game for Philanthropy? (2020), an essay series produced in collaboration with the Knight Foundation.
In 2017, Gilmore was selected to participate in the Council on Foundations’ Career Pathways program, an intensive, yearlong leadership development program for senior executives in the philanthropic sector from across the country. She is a member of the advisory board for the Ashland University Women in Leadership certificate program and has served on Philanthropy Ohio’s conference planning committee since 2021.
Gilmore earned a BA in English from Wright State University and an MA in English from the University of Dayton. She also holds a Women in Leadership certificate from Ashland University.