Louisa McCune

About Louisa McCune

After spending the first part of my career in magazine journalism, I switched to philanthropy in April 2011 when I became executive director of the Kirkpatrick Foundation. The foundation was started in 1955 by John and Eleanor Kirkpatrick and is now chaired by their grandson, Christian Keesee. At Kirkpatrick Foundation, we provide financial support to nonprofits in the areas of arts, culture, education, animal wellbeing, environmental conservation, and historic preservation. We have a number of philanthropic initiatives including Safe & Humane, a twenty-year endeavor to make Oklahoma the safest and most humane place to be an animal; and ArtDesk, a quarterly magazine about the contemporary arts. For a free copy of any of our publications, please write to o•••••@kirkpatrickfoundation.com and include your mailing address. In 2023, ArtDesk turns ten years old. The magazine is distributed in all fifty states and ten foreign countries, through the New York Times, USPS, The Oklahoman, and racks. In December 2022, we were a featured magazine at Art Basel Miami; in June 2023, in Basel, Switzerland. In 2022, my essay, The Skeleton\'s Key to Nature\'s Course: John Newsom Paints the Cosmogram, was published by Oklahoma Contemporary. Forthcoming is Deep in the Heartland: Early Concepts of Humane Education and Virtue Ethics in Oklahoma (Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics), co-authored by Dr. Bob Blackburn and Dr. Nancy Snow. In August 2022, I presented at Oxford University\'s Merton College in association with the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, with non-profit attorney Abby Levine. In 2021, at Kirkpatrick Foundation, we hosted our third triennial ANIMAL Conference (the next one is in the fall 2024), and I served as chairman of Philanthropy Southwest\'s 73rd Annual Conference. Also, I concluded my six-year term on the board of Animal Grantmakers and was appointed to a ten-year term on the Neighborhoods subcommittee for MAPS4. I currently sit on the OSU Environmental Science Graduate Program Advisory Board and am treasurer of Patrons of OKC Animal Shelter. Since 2011, I have served as an advisory trustee for the Kirkpatrick Family Fund and Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, and as an advisor to Green Box Arts. I am the treasurer for Kirkpatrick Policy Group and Vice President for Oklahoma Voters United, 501c4 organizations. I was a founding member of the Oklahoma Roundtable for Animal Welfare (20••••17) and founder of the Sallie McFarland Rucks Reader Series at Wilson Elementary School (20••••14). I live with my sons—Mac, Rucks, and Edward—several dogs and a cat.

Experience

1. Executive Director

   Kirkpatrick Foundation Inc

   Apr 2011 — Present · Oklahoma City, OK, US

   As executive director, she oversees all aspects of the foundation’s grantmaking, programmatic, financial, and administrative activities, including the foundation’s two initiatives Safe & Humane and ArtDesk magazine.

Education

• San Francisco State University

  Bachelor of Arts (BA)

  1990 — 1992