Sandra Aponte

Program Officer, Chicago Commitment at MacArthur Foundation

Sandra works with the Chicago Commitment team with a primary focus on the Culture, Equity, and the Arts grantmaking area.

Sandra worked for more than eight years with The Chicago Community Trust, where she was most recently the Program Manager for Community Impact as well as the Program Officer for Arts and Culture. In the program manager role, she worked on neighborhood and community wealth building. Sandra brings over 15 years of experience working to advance arts and culture in the areas of social well-being and cohesion, education, and economic systems. Prior to joining the Trust, she worked at The Field Museum leading collaborative programs and at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance in fundraising and development. Sandra participated in the Fellowship in Arts and Culture Management program by The Chicago Community Trust—a highly selective, rigorous initiative that provided leadership experience through residencies at some of the most renowned cultural institutions throughout the city.

Sandra earned a master’s degree in business with a concentration in international business from DePaul University in Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. Fluent in Spanish.

Sandra is co-chair of the Arts Work Fund for Organizational Development and AMPT: Advancing Nonprofit Funder Council. She serves as board member of the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.


Org chart