About Lori

Lori Heninger, PhD is a writer and nonprofit executive; she is currently the Executive Director of the Montclair Fund for Women, a private foundation providing funding to organizations supporting women and girls of color.

Lori has over 30 years of experience in US- and internationally-based humanitarian and development work. She has directed organizations focused on service delivery, policy and advocacy, and has consulted with both organizations and networks on board development, strategic planning, structure and managing. Her work has taken her to many countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, for partnerships with youth groups, assessments in refugee situations, capacity development on education in emergencies and research on children in armed groups. In the US, she has worked on issues of homelessness, youth sexual and reproductive health.

Always a writer, Lori is the author of “Managing As Mission: Nonprofit Managing for Sustainable Change”, and the children’s book “Outside/Inside/Outside”. For the past couple of years she has studied and written poetry through Project Write Now in Red Bank, New Jersey and has had her work published in PoetryXHunger, The Dillydoun Review and upcoming in The Bangalore Review.

Lori received her BA in Education from Kean University, her Masters in Social Work from Columbia University and her PhD in Social Welfare from New York’s City University Graduate Center. Her dissertation, titled “Conducting Qualitative Research in Countries at War, Implementation and Impact Factors in a Study of Girls in Armed Groups” focused on the ethics of research with unaccompanied children in conflict settings.

Lori lives in rural New Jersey with her husband, two dogs, a cat, seven chickens and a pidgeon named Michelle. She has a daughter and one grandson, and blows glass as a hobby.