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Foundation’s Impact team welcomes director

Sam Aleinikoff

Sam Aleinikoff leads College Access and Completion strategy portfolio.

Sam Aleinikoff

The Foundation recently hired Sam Aleinikoff as director, college access and completion on the Impact team.

Led by Chief Impact and Strategy Officer Allison Greenwood, Aleinikoff serves as the Foundation’s programmatic and operational strategist for its College Access and Completion area, translating our vision into an intentional and robust college access and completion funding portfolio.

Sam Aleinikoff brings strong experience and a proven commitment to creating pathways for affordable, high-quality, and attainable post-secondary education that will catalyze our efforts to prepare students to start and complete college, and transition to good-paying jobs.

— Allison Greenwood
Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Kauffman Foundation

Prior to joining the Foundation, Aleinikoff served as the founder and executive director of College AIM. The organization, based in DeKalb County, Georgia, helps students forge paths to and through college.

Aleinikoff co-led the Steering Committee for Georgians for College Affordability, helping to steward statewide advocacy efforts that contributed to Georgia’s first-ever comprehensive needs-based financial aid program. He also served on the State Policy Council with the National College Attainment Network. Aleinikoff began his career as a high school math teacher and was named Towers High School Teacher of the Year in 2015.

Aleinikoff earned a Bachelor of Science, Human Development from Cornell University.

Wendy Rasmussen

Also joining the impact team is Wendy Rasmussen, Ph.D., a contractor serving as an AI Fellow. Her one-year fellowship will help identify and inform how artificial intelligence can be used as a force for economic mobility, opportunity creation, and inclusive growth – while actively guarding against the risk of AI exacerbating inequities.

We welcome Wendy Rasmussen’s human-centered expertise to our work to provide insight on where AI can remove barriers, redesign systems, and unlock new forms of access.

— Allison Greenwood
Chief Impact and Strategy Officer, Kauffman Foundation

Rasmussen is the founder of Alpenglow Insights, working with small and mid-sized businesses on the human side of AI adoption – identifying what has to be true for AI to be adopted responsibly, and helping leaders build those conditions. A Navy veteran and license clinical psychologist, Rasmussen holds a doctorate degree in Psychological and Quantitative Foundations (Counseling Psychology) from the University of Iowa and a Master of Business Administration from U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business.

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