Kashif Shaikh is the Co-Founder and President of Pillars Fund. Under his leadership, Pillars has invested more than $6 million in grants to create opportunities for Muslims in the United States to tell their own stories, build community, and fight injustice through the media, arts, public discourse, and civil society.
Prior to launching Pillars, Kashif was a program officer at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, where he helped manage a portfolio of more than $20 million and helped scale a variety of Chicago nonprofits working at the intersection of racial justice, poverty, and education. Kashif’s expert insight has been featured in The New York Times, Buzzfeed, Variety, and NPR, among others.
He currently serves on the board of directors of the Peabody Awards, Chicago Humanities Festival, and Mortar, a Cincinnati nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs from historically marginalized communities access resources to start and run successful businesses.
