The call came decades ago, while Casey Rogers was on a dusty road near a Namibian market. She knew then that her purpose in life was to connect people with resources and people with unmet needs.

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Such a lofty ideal easily could have been left behind with a trip back to more familiar surroundings. 

But spend five minutes with Casey, and it’s clear that never was an option. She is one who consistently takes the long view, as evidenced by completing the Chicago Marathon, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and traveling to more than 40 countries. She is not one to be impatient in accomplishing a task.

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No surprise, then, that her moment of clarity in Africa ignited an enduring career of garnering resources, discovering and meeting needs, and solving social issues. Casey not only has the heart, but also has the drive, skill and confidence to understand what must be done, and then to do it.  

 

Consider her work with the Hilton Foundation as an example. She led the foundation’s multi-million-dollar collaborative grantmaking post-Hurricane Katrina. But she also crafted and facilitated a restatement and renewal of the foundation’s values and culture, as well as guided the Hilton family board through a one-year governance structure transition. Between 2004-2018, she was trusted to conduct in-depth due diligence on finalists for the $2 million Hilton Humanitarian Prize, reviewing and creating assessments in a variety of countries in a number of fields.

 

Casey has accomplished much in and for Africa. In addition to the teaching stint in Namibia that started it all, she helped found Deep Roots, a nonprofit that provided scholarships to academically gifted, low-income students for a decade, eventually expanding to Nepal and Guatemala. She also has been involved in project management and research across Africa, and worked in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Rwanda.

 

Since 2018 Casey has led The Ellen Fund, a non-profit advancing conservation for endangered species. An inaugural partnership with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund has resulted in creation of the 12-acre, research and scientific campus in northern Rwanda called the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund which is committed to training the next generation of conservation leaders. In 2021, the Ellen Fund launched the Endangered Campaign to grant $1 million to support seven endangered species, including lemur, clouded leopard, Grauer’s gorilla, Indonesian songbirds, shark, giraffe and frogs.  Throughout Casey’s work with The Ellen Fund, she strives to partner with and amplify the voices of women and conservationists of color, who are often underrepresented in the field. 

 

Joining the Santa Barbara, California community in 2019 with her husband and two daughters, Casey soon became a volunteer with Coffee with a Black Guy, a platform which fosters community dialogue about race, and serves on the boards of the Social Justice Fund for Ventura County and Human Rights Watch-Santa Barbara.

 

Ask her what she’s most proud of, however, and she’ll mention the relationships in each of those journeys. She’s not often the face out front—but she is always the one continuing to move forward, for the benefit of others.