About the Foundation
The Foundation has operated continuously since 1994, supporting practitioners and researchers who contribute to the measured reform of scumbag behaviours. Our approach is evidence-based, our posture is modest, and our scope is narrow by design.
Part I
The Scumbag Foundation was established in the autumn of 1994 by a consortium of private individuals whose identities have never been disclosed. In accordance with the consortium's original charter, founding membership is referred to in Foundation records only as "scumbags, broadly defined" — a designation the consortium arrived at after extended internal debate and one which has been retained as a point of institutional principle in every subsequent governance document.
The Foundation was endowed at incorporation with $840,000, held in trust and administered under the 1994 Founding Instrument. The Instrument specifies that no founding member may be named in any Foundation communication during their lifetime, and that no founding member may receive any Foundation grant, fellowship, or honorarium in perpetuity. The Foundation has observed both provisions without exception.
The first grant round was administered in 1997, supporting three practitioners working on reintegration programmes along the eastern seaboard. In 2003 the Foundation expanded its scope to include international programming, entering into a long-standing partnership with the Harnsbeck Institute for Social Reintegration (dissolved 2019). A significant programmatic refocus followed the appointment of the current Executive Director in 2011, narrowing the Foundation's grantmaking to emerging practitioners and a single annual research fellowship.
The Research Fellowship was formally established in 2019, the same year the Foundation's offices were relocated to their present address in Newport, Rhode Island. The Foundation continues to operate under the provisions of the 1994 Instrument, with minor amendments approved by the board in 2008 and 2017.
The Foundation is not, and has never been, open to new members of the founding consortium. No mechanism exists in the Founding Instrument for such an expansion, and the board has had no occasion to revisit the matter.
Part II
The Foundation is governed by a six-member board, which meets quarterly. Board members serve three-year terms, renewable once. The board bears final responsibility for grantmaking decisions, financial oversight, and the stewardship of the Founding Instrument.
Eleanor R. Whitfield
Chair
Formerly Senior Counsel, Office of the Attorney General (Rhode Island); Adjunct Lecturer, Roger Williams University School of Law
Eleanor has served as Chair since 2017. Her thirty-year career in public law has centred on statutory reform, restorative justice frameworks, and the administration of conditional release programmes.
Marcus Abernathy
Deputy Chair
Formerly Director of Community Services, Southern New England Reintegration Network
Marcus joined the board in 2019 following two decades in community-based service delivery. His operational experience with transitional housing and practitioner mentorship continues to inform the Foundation's programming posture.
Theodora J. Blake
Treasurer
Formerly Portfolio Director, Northfield Asset Management; CPA
Theodora oversees the Foundation's endowment and financial reporting. Her background in private wealth and small-endowment stewardship brings particular rigour to the Foundation's grantmaking capacity analysis.
Dr. Samuel O. Greaves
Board Member
Associate Professor (ret.) of Sociology, University of Vermont; author of The Antisocial Turn (2011)
Dr. Greaves brings a long scholarly engagement with antisocial behavioural studies, having published extensively on typological approaches to misconduct and the limits of behavioural reform in community settings.
Harriet Pell
Board Member
Formerly Head of Organisational Development, Cullen & Rowe Partners
Harriet has spent her career at the intersection of organisational behaviour and individual accountability in professional contexts. She joined the board in 2021.
Nathaniel F. Oduya
Board Member
Formerly Executive Director, The Levenston Foundation (2003–2018)
Nathaniel's two decades directing a mid-sized private foundation inform the Foundation's approach to grantmaking strategy, due diligence, and measured programme expansion.
Part III
Dr. Ines M. Calloway
Executive Director, 2011–
Dr. Calloway was appointed Executive Director in 2011, succeeding the Foundation's second Director following an eighteen-month transition. Prior to her appointment she held senior programming roles at the Wyndham Trust and served on the advisory council of the Harnsbeck Institute for Social Reintegration.
Her published work includes contributions to the Foundation's Working Paper series, as well as the 2016 monograph Measured Reform: An Operational Framework. She holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh and Brown University.
A note
The Foundation is asked about its name with some regularity. Our response has not materially changed since the institution's founding. The name is, as the 1994 Instrument records, the term the founding consortium used to describe themselves. The board has never considered it appropriate to substitute a different designation.
The Foundation does not believe its name is impolite. The Foundation believes that the unease the name produces in polite settings is itself a useful feature of the institution's work.