Kit has led mission-driven organizations to achieve greater impact and effectiveness in partnership with their audiences, supporters and customers for over 35 years. She continues to explore how local assets – people and places, residents’ knowledge, collective narratives, and iconic objects and sites – can weave together to strengthen communities. She works across sectors as she leads and coaches arts, cultural, and heritage institutions, funders, impact investors, and government policy-makers. She is committed to helping funders and cultural organizations align in their collective work toward improving community wellbeing.

Highlights from her experience include:

• Federal grant-making leadership as executive-level agency head of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and member of the National Council for the Humanities
• Facility expansion programming for Science City at Union Station, Please Touch Children’s Museum, and Chemical Heritage Foundation within national historic landmark buildings
• Executive management and strategic advising at Historic Charleston Foundation, The Center for Craft, The Nature Conservancy, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and Cranbrook Institute of Science
• Publication of Fundraising for Impact in Libraries, Archives, and Museums: Making the Case to Government, Foundation, Corporate and Individual Funders (2022, Routledge)
• New product development roles at Reebok, Blackbaud software, and Unilever R&D/brands
• Rural community development and funding expertise gleaned from work with Mountain Bizworks, The Appalachian Funders Network, and St. David’s Foundation

A skilled facilitator and project manager, Kit has led innovation teams, communities, and funders/donors towards alignment around common agendas with agreed-upon outcomes and progress indicators.

Kit earned a Ph.D. in Biology from University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota. In addition, she is a Prosci-certified Change Management Practitioner and Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt-certified from the University of Southern California.