Amina J. Dickerson

Amina J. Dickerson, senior director of global community involvement for Kraft Foods, leads Kraft’s global community involvement initiatives, including all of company’s charitable giving, humanitarian aid and employee involvement programs. With her 7 member staff and an $18.3 million budget, Dickerson guides international programs in hunger, health and wellness, sustainability and community engagement, including the arts. She brings to this post three decades of experience with non-profit institutional development, arts, education and cultural programming with an emphasis in museums, and public/private collaboration.

Previous to her appointment to Kraft in 1997, Dickerson held senior appointments for the Chicago Historical Society, the DuSable Museum of African American History, the Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum of Philadelphia and Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and numerous boards, panels and consultancies. Currently, she is a board member of the Harris Center for Music and Dance at Millennium Park, co-chair of the Peer Network for International Giving of the Donor’s Forum of Chicago and Vice Chair of the International Committee of the Council of Foundations. In 1996 Dickerson was a Distinguished Visitor with the MacArthur Foundation and was appointed a Class XVI Kellogg Fellow. In 2002 she was named Chicago’s Professional Grantor of the Year, and in 2004 received the 10th Annual Sor Juana Award from the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and a legacy award from eta Creative Arts Theater, both in Chicago. Joined by four other funders, Amina was named Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune in 2005 for the partnership to advance jazz she helped to initiate. She received the Timuel Black Award for Community Service from the Jazz Institute of Chicago in 2006. She is a frequent speaker and panelist on various philanthropy, arts and education, non-profit and community issues in Chicago and nationwide.

Ms. Dickerson holds a M.A. in arts management from the American University in Washington, DC, and was named to their Alumni Hall of Fame in 2005. She studied theater arts at Emerson College and holds a certificate from the Harvard University program in Arts Administration. She resides in Chicago with her husband, Julian Roberts.