During his 20-plus years in philanthropy, Dr. Dwayne Proctor has always worked to ensure that American communities were healthy and thriving. He is the President and CEO of the Missouri Foundation for Health, joining MFH in 2021.

The Foundation works to improve health through collaboration, convening, knowledge sharing, and strategic investment, never losing sight of the equity lens that shapes all its work.

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Under his leadership, MFH strives to become an antiracist institution that fairly targets its resources to achieve health equity in Missouri by 2023. The Foundation recently launched a 20-year Food Justice strategic initiative to build collaborative efforts and galvanize shifts in current policies and practices that shape the way Missourians eat. MFH works to address a diverse mix of pressing issues across the state, including Medicaid expansion, childhood obesity, firearm violence, suicide prevention, crisis response, and behavioral health. The Foundation works on several strategic initiatives focused on women’s health, such as access to contraception, and infant health and vitality.

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Before his time at MFH, he served in a variety of roles at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 2005, Dr. Proctor was tapped to lead RWJF’s national strategies to reverse the rise in childhood obesity rates. In this role, he collaborated with his colleagues to promote effective changes to public policies and industry practices, test and demonstrate innovative community and school-based environmental changes, and leverage sustainable changes using both “grassroots” and “treetops” advocacy approaches to educate local and national leaders on their roles and opportunities to prevent childhood obesity.

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Dr. Proctor was recently elected as the Board Chair for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a nonprofit that pushes philanthropy to do more for people and communities with the least wealth and opportunity. He also serves on the National Academy of Medicine’s Leadership Consortium, which is focused on advancing and supporting the learning healthcare system through evidence mobilization, digital health, value incentives and systems, and culture inclusion and equity.

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Dr. Proctor was an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine where he taught courses on health communication and marketing practices to reach multicultural populations. During his Fulbright Fellowship in Senegal, West Africa, his research team investigated how HIV prevention messages raised awareness of AIDS as a national health problem. Dr. Proctor received his doctoral, master’s, and bachelor’s degrees in marketing and communication science from the University of Connecticut. He is the former chairperson of the board of directors for the Association of Black Foundation Executives and currently is the chairperson of the board of trustees for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Foundation, and serves as an advisor to both the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy and the Wisconsin Medical School.