Melinda Gilmore is director of communications for the Kettering Foundation. She oversees foundation publications, press relations, and digital communications and media, and she directs all communications in service of the mission, vision, and values of the foundation.
Gilmore has for many years played a key role in writing and editing foundation publications and communications. She has worked at the foundation in a variety of capacities, including, most recently, as director of strategic initiatives. Since 2012, she has edited Kettering’s flagship annual periodical, Connections, becoming executive editor in 2019. She is also editor of the foundation’s newsletter, News & Notes. Gilmore was 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. This is a yearlong experience of leadership development for senior executives in the philanthropic sector, all chosen from across the country. Gilmore 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 holds a BA in English from Wright State University and an MA in English from the University of Dayton.