Martha W. King oversees the Foundation’s grantmaking in Urban Affairs and Education. She was formerly the executive director of the New York City Board of Correction, the City’s jail watchdog and independent oversight agency. Prior to that, Martha was a policy advisor to the first deputy mayor of New York City where she advised on priorities and policies related to criminal justice and education, managed the Mayor’s Task Force on Behavioral Health and the Criminal Justice System, and co-chaired the Public Safety Committee of OneNYC. She has also consulted with more than a dozen New York City based, mission driven organizations to plan and fund new initiatives and build capacity through strategic planning and cross-sector partnerships. Martha began her career planning and evaluating initiatives at CASES, the largest alternative to incarceration program in New York City, and was an Oscar S. Straus II fellow in Criminal Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice.

Martha is chair of the Board of Directors of the Correctional Association of New York and serves on the Board of Directors of the Poetry Society of America. She has co-chaired the funder collaborative GoVoteNYC since 2021. Martha is also a Sterling Network fellow. She has dual master’s degrees in public affairs and urban planning from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a B.A. in African American Studies from Wesleyan University. She is a certified end-of-life doula and continues to research and write about jail and prison conditions.