The Theodore Edson Parker Foundation in Boston is pleased to announce major changes in its board leadership and governance.

With the election of Sophy Theam of Lowell, Massachusetts, and David W. Donahue, Jr. of Hingham, Massachusetts, as trustees, the foundation has strengthened its position in Lowell, and, with a move toward youth, positioned itself for the future.

They join longstanding members Newell Flather, President, Andrew C. Bailey, Secretary and Treasurer, and Karen H. Carpenter. Their election completes the Parker board number at five as limited by the foundation’s founding instrument. Although the continuing trustees have long ties to the city, Theam, a banker and active community member in Lowell, becomes the Parker’s only trustee-resident and the second woman elected to the board. Donahue, an experienced investment advisor, brings to the board fresh perspectives and a strong understanding of the particular financial needs of foundations and nonprofit organizations. While not a resident, he is a member of a five-generation Lowell family that is widely recognized for its community service and philanthropy.

Sophy Theam, a 1999 Boston College graduate, began her association with the Parker Foundation in 2001 when she was selected as a Parker Fellow, an honorary and functional position she held through 2004. In 2007 she was elected to the foundation’s inaugural three-member advisory board, along with Donahue and Luis Pedroso, a business and community leader in Lowell. Theam is employed as a Learning and Development Specialist in the Human Resources Department of Enterprise Bank, Lowell. She succeeds Thomas E. Leggat, of Lincoln, as trustee. Leggat, a Lowell native and Boston real estate executive, retired from the Parker board at the end of 2010, following 32 years of distinguished service to the foundation and the community. He will join Pedroso as a senior advisor to the foundation.

A four-year veteran on the Parker advisory board, David Donahue is a 1987 Bowdoin College graduate who earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1993. Following more than a decade in money management at several leading firms, in 2005 he joined Moors and Cabot in Boston where he helped create Eagle Claw Capital Management. Donahue has experience as a trustee of non-profit organizations, and, by happy coincidence, serves as a manager of investments for the Greater Lowell Community Foundation. In joining the board, he fills a longstanding vacancy.

Flather, co-founder of GMA Foundations, Inc., in Boston, and Parker’s President for 36 years, comments, “We will greatly miss Tom, but are fortunate to have new trustees of Sophy Theam and DJ Donahue’s caliber in his place. The trustees are appreciative of her bank’s willingness to allow Sophy the time we will need to help advance our mission in Lowell. Also, if our understanding is true, we are especially proud that she is the first Cambodian-American to serve on a US foundation board. We hope and expect there will be many more, but look forward to the day when such comments on diversity will be unnecessary. Equally important, we are delighted to have someone on our board with DJ’s special expertise. There is no question that we face an uncertain and challenging investment future. And while not a resident of Lowell, he is truly a son of the city.”

The Parker Foundation was established in 1944 under the will of Theodore Edson Parker, of Lowell. With a population of 107,000, the gateway city of Lowell is the fourth largest city in Massachusetts and, after Long Beach, California, home to the second largest Cambodian population in the United States. Under its charter, the foundation was instructed to be “devoted to the benefit of charitable, educational, and philanthropic Institutions within or without the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” For its first 40 years, more than 80 percent of annual grants was allocated to Boston institutions.

In the 1980s, based on assessments of need and opportunity, the trustees undertook a major policy change, shifting their attention to a focus on Lowell. At that time, thanks to the creation of an urban national and state park, the resettlement of Cambodians, and inspired efforts from influential leaders such as School Superintendent Patrick Mogan and Senator Paul Tsongas, Lowell was in the midst of a dramatic transformation. Today, led by the foundation’s administrator Phil Hall and staff members Chaletta Huertas, Kirstie David and current Parker Fellow Doeun Kol, all of the funding is concerned with dynamic and compelling charitable agencies and programs in Parker’s home town.