Kelly Simone

Kelly Shipp Simone joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in 2013. She brings extensive legal experience in supporting grantmakers in various aspects of foundation management and views her work with RWJF as “advising on grantmaking and other Foundation activities designed to improve the health and healthcare of everyone in America.”

Previously, Kelly was the vice president of Legal Affairs at the Council on Foundations, providing legal information to private foundations and public charities on a broad cross-section of legal issues. She also served as the Council’s deputy general counsel and senior staff attorney. Prior to joining the Council in 2003, she served as a law fellow with the Alliance for Justice.

Kelly has authored numerous articles for foundations and is the author of the Council on Foundations’ publications How to Calculate the Public Support Test, Top 10 Ways Private Foundations Can Influence Public Policy, and the most recent edition of Family Foundations and the Law: Answers to the Essential Questions. She also contributed to the Alliance for Justice publication, Investing in Change: A Funder’s Guide to Supporting Advocacy.

Kelly holds a JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law and a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from the University of North Carolina School of Social Work. She is a member of the bar in Maryland and the District of Columbia. A graduate of the University of Maryland at College Park, she earned a BA in both Women’s Studies and Government and Politics.

A Maryland native, Kelly now resides in Hopewell, N.J., with her husband, Sean, a survey researcher with the U.S. Department of Education, and their three children. In addition to spending time with her family at Disney World, she relishes spending time with a good mystery audiobook.