Rich Huddleston has been hired as program director for the Arkansas Community Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Arkansas communities protect, grow and direct charitable dollars.
Huddleston joins the nonprofit after spending nearly 30 years with Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families, an organization that promoted and won reforms in education, health care, tax and juvenile justice during his tenure.
In an interview with Arkansas Business, Huddleston said that he left AACF because he felt it was time to try something new.
“The reason I left Arkansas Advocates, which was back in December, was because I had been with the organization for 27 years, 18 [years] as executive director, which is a long time to lead an advocacy group. I was ready to do something different,” he said.
Under Huddleston, the AACF through its advocacy helped increase the state minimum wage three times and expand pre-kindergarten programs. In his new role, Huddleston said he can continue to pursue his passion for philanthropy, but in a slightly different way.
“Most of the work I’m doing here is not related to advocacy. What’s different here is that I’m not leading a whole organization. My job is more narrow in that respect,” he said. “I’m also not having to manage a whole lot of people.”
The two positions have similar goals of wanting to make Arkansas a better place, Huddleston said.
Huddleston’s new role has him overseeing four aspects of the ACF’s mission, including advising donors on how to leverage their investments, working to lead the foundation’s efforts to improve early childhood outcomes, working with nonprofits to help build their community leadership capabilities, and supporting the foundation’s Aspire project. The data-driven initiative aims to help donors improve their communities through charitable giving by providing county-by-county statistics on education, health, families and communities.
Huddleston said his training through the AACF made his transition to the ACF much easier.
“I have that basic knowledge of how foundations work and what they are trying to accomplish and how to work with grant teams. I typically had some skills that transferred to this new position, and I’m very excited for this new position,” Huddleston said. “I hope to help the foundation accomplish great things in terms of maximizing the impact philanthropy can have in Arkansas.”
Amidst rumors that he was retiring after leaving AACF, Huddleston made it clear that he has no plans to step away from philanthropy any time soon.
“I’m not exactly sure how that got out! It was never my intent to permanently retire,” he said. “I did want to take a few months off after I left the Advocacy last year. I still plan on working at least another 7-8 years.”
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