Margaret Connelly is the Managing Director of Founder Initiatives at the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. In this role, she oversees Arthur Blank’s personal giving, including legacy grantmaking, veterans and military giving, stuttering, the Westside transformation work and each of the Blank Family of Businesses’ associate-led giving committees.

This role marks Margaret’s return to the Blank Family Foundation, where she previously spent ten years overseeing the foundation’s early childhood education and post-secondary readiness portfolio and also helped to develop, execute and lead the foundation’s parks and greenspace grantmaking strategy.

Margaret has held several leadership and consulting roles in Atlanta’s philanthropic community. Most recently, she was a senior consultant at Coxe Curry, where she advised clients to create sustainable and impactful organizational and development plans. Margaret also was a consultant at The Eplan Group, where she assisted both family and corporate foundations in developing giving plans to achieve greater community impact. Her prior work also included strategic planning and capacity-building for organizations such as Emory University, Georgia State University, Quality Care for Children and Kennesaw State University.

As the executive director of Park Pride, Margaret helped grow the organization’s operating reserves, capital improvement budget, and programmatic efforts, including an effort to increase community gardens and urban agriculture opportunities in Atlanta. At the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, she expanded community and corporate partnerships and led fundraising campaigns. Margaret began her career as a crisis counselor for the Fulton County Division of Mental Health.

Margaret has served on many professional boards and committees, including being selected as a Southeastern Council of Foundations Hull Fellow, being selected for Columbia University’s Emerging Leaders Program, and serving on the board of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth where she served as an officer and chaired its Inclusiveness Committee. She currently serves on the board of The May P. and Francis L. Abreu Charitable Trust.

Margaret earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Syracuse University. She and her husband live in Sandy Springs, Georgia, with their two children.