Dr. Sherece West came to Little Rock in May to head the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. She was born in Brooklyn, but raised in Baltimore and most recently lived in Louisiana, where she headed up the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation. She is no stranger, then, to the open embrace a Southern(ish) town like Little Rock offers.  

But still, West, 42, never expected to live in Arkansas. “Now I’m here, I’m glad I discovered it,” she said. The food, she conceded, isn’t quite what she got in New Orleans. “The food in New Orleans is its own thing,” she said, smiling at the memory of such glorious fare. But Arkansas has beautiful scenery, she said (she’d had no idea it was so verdant), and its people she’s found “warm and generous.” 

So is the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, created by the estate of the former Arkansas governor — himself a New York transplant — to push for social justice in his adopted state. Since 1974, the foundation has awarded more than $90 million in funds to benefit Arkansas; its assets today are nearly $149 million. 

West’s first task when she arrived (she succeeded Dr. Sybil Hampton, who retired in 2006) was to meet with people in Little Rock and around the state and ask them what they thought the state’s greatest needs are today. Talking to people in the non-profit community, elected officials, grantees and others in nearly 100 cities and towns over the past six months, she said, she found profound consensus on what keeps Arkansas in those bottom five rankings: Poverty and limited education.  

In her report to her board in September, West said “poverty is purple,” a non-partisan problem that affects everybody, a concern for red Republicans and blue Democrats alike. She provided some unhappy statistics: Child poverty is 21.9 percent nationally, but 23.8 percent in Arkansas. Median U.S. income is $48,201, but only $36,599 in Arkansas. The state ranks 46th in bank accounts, 47th in bankruptcy rates and 50th in number of graduates from four-year colleges. It’s 47th for minority-owned businesses, including women, blacks and Hispanics. 

So what should the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation do about economic and educational poverty? The precise answer won’t be decided until next year, West said. But the foundation has a goal: To build political will and use grant funds to “move the needle,” move Arkansas from those bottom rankings, by 2017. 

Poverty is something West knows about. She grew up in public housing in West Baltimore. She has spent much of her career — which includes 13 years with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Rebuilding Communities Initiative — working to help people make the connection between decent housing and a fair society. It’s like a body, she said: When one part is broken, the rest doesn’t function as it should.  

West said she’s been “thoroughly impressed” by the non-profit community in Arkansas and looks forward to partnering with organizations to help move Arkansas up. She’s found brilliant minds and people with their hearts in the right place. With the right mix, she sees “hope for all of Arkansas.” 

“I’m looking forward to doing my part,” she said. “I pray that I can do an excellent job.” 

— Leslie Newell Peacock