When The Ford Family Foundation President Anne Kubisch recently took her first tour of Eastern Oregon, she met a few Ford Scholar Alumni and was inspired by their commitment to their rural communities and realized the great resource that alumni are to the Foundation.<\/p>\n

Kubisch said that Director of Scholarship Programs Denise Callahan was hired last fall in part because of her extensive background in alumni work. Callahan\u2019s goal is to create more alumni engagement and not only build relationships with each other but with other aspects of the Foundation.<\/p>\n

With Callahan\u2019s help, Kubisch intends to do more internally to support the Ford Scholar Alumni Association.<\/p>\n

Kubisch suggested three ways that alumni can take action: help recruit a new generation of Scholars; mentor Scholars and alumni; and be an active part of an employment network.<\/p>\n

Kubisch encourages alumni to provide career advice to one another. When alumni are in their 30s with families, they don\u2019t have a lot of time to give back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake it easy for you to contribute,\u201d Kubisch said.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Kubisch would like to see graduates of the Ford Opportunity Program and the Ford ReStart Program join the FSAA. With more than 4,000 people with Ford Family Scholarships, Kubisch said that is a huge resource. \u201cIt would enrich and diversify the network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she would like to see all scholarship recipients work together in one alumni association, she said it\u2019s up to the FSAA to consider inviting the other groups of graduates to the organization.<\/p>\n

One thing Kubisch has quickly learned as president of the Foundation is that the Ford Scholar Program is impressive and was \u201cnear and dear to Kenneth Ford\u2019s heart.\u201d It\u2019s still a flagship program and is something to be proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When The Ford Family Foundation President Anne Kubisch recently took her first tour of Eastern Oregon, she met a few Ford Scholar Alumni and was inspired by their commitment to their rural communities and realized the great resource that alumni are to the Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Anne-Kubisch-mjl4268effect-2-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8g73C-3n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fordscholaralumni.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}