About Timothy
Timothy Dorsey served as Program Officer for the Strategic Opportunities Fund at the Open Society Foundations. In this capacity, Tim facilitated grantmaking across OSI’s U.S. Programs related to research and development, rapid response to urgent situations, and cross-cutting social justice concerns.
Prior to his work at the Open Society Foundations, Tim served as Director of the Youth Media Learning Network (YMLN), a national initiative to support professional development for artists and educators who teach social-issue media production to young people. He has a broad range of experience in media arts, youth engagement, and nonprofit leadership related to education and social change. For four years he was Managing Director of the Educational Video Center (EVC), a New York City-based youth media organization dedicated to teaching documentary video production to high school students. He has also served as Deputy Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC); coordinated youth programs at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity and The Experiment in International Living; and taught English Language Arts at the high school level at the Navajo Preparatory School (Farmington, New Mexico), St. Bede’s Secondary School (Northern Province, South Africa), and Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, DC). He has participated on steering committees and advisory boards for Girls Incorporated’s National Media Literacy Initiative; the Urban Visionaries Youth Film Festival; the International YMCA’s Program for Teens; the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN); and the Youth Media Reporter; and conference planning committees for the Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) and Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA). He also served as Co-Chair of the Art and Social Justice Working Group.
Tim holds a B.A. from Georgetown University, an M.A. from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, and an M.F.A from the Institute of American Indian Arts. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University, the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), and the Community of Writers.