We’re the Wellesley Free Library Foundation
The Wellesley Free Library Foundation is a private, 501(c)(3) corporation supporting the mission of the Wellesley Free Library. Our goal is to enrich, not replace, traditional tax-based support for the Library through gifts, grants, and bequests from individuals and organizations, while reinforcing the need for continued and increased public support for the Library. The Foundation spearheads major fundraising efforts to bridge the gap between the community’s aspirations for its library and assets available from municipal budgets.

Our Impact
In recent years, approximately 15-20% of the Library’s budget has come from private fundraising, all of which is used to enhance our library in ways that town dollars cannot provide.
Current funding initiatives include: Support of programs and equipment in the Jackie’s Room Technology Education Lab; School Outreach; Wellesley ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages); and the Fells Branch Library.
Our History
The Wellesley Free Library Foundation was established by the Library Trustees in 2008 to serve as the main supporting organization of the Library. Working in partnership with the Library’s Administration and Trustees as well as its other supporting organization, the Friends of the Wellesley Free Libraries, The Library Foundation encourages private philanthropy on behalf of the Wellesley Free Library. This strong public/private partnership builds support for the many enriched opportunities and special endeavors, both current and future, that make the Wellesley Free Library such an outstanding community resource.
FAQs
The Wellesley Free Library, originally established in 1883 through the generosity of Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, is a traditional suburban public library. The main library and two branches provide lending materials, reference services, literacy support, and a wide range of community programs and training courses. The WFL is an integral part of the Wellesley community. The Library Trustees established The Wellesley Free Library Foundation in 2008 to serve as the main supporting organization of the Library. The sole purpose of The Library Foundation is to raise private funds from individuals and organizations to supplement core funding from tax dollars. These additional dollars help maintain the high level of service that the Wellesley community has come to expect from its Library.
Prudent use of funding from the Town allows the WFL to fulfill its basic mission — to provide free and convenient access to information. Most of the Library’s budget goes toward core services including salaries and operating costs, not programs or collections. Much of what you see, use, and borrow at the WFL is paid for with private donations — including programs, our enhanced collection, museum passes, the self-check machine, and more. There is no community resource as necessary to the growth of our citizens as the Wellesley Free Library, and no other institution that will benefit more from your support.
Your contribution is not only important — it is essential! The WFL is a critical community resource — our circulation and usage are extraordinarily high – more than 1000 patrons visit each day. Excellent library services are extremely important to the quality of life in Wellesley and while the tax impact budget covers many of the basic services offered at the library, over the past 5 years between 15-20% of the operating needs are met through private funding. The WFL is an extraordinary resource for each and every resident of Wellesley, and we need your help to keep the WFL the best library it can be.
The Library Foundation’s 990s are available on the IRS website.
Organization name: WELLESLEY FREE LIBRARY FOUNDATION, INC.
EIN: 26-3194155
Our Board
Thank you to the individuals who commit their time and talent to the Wellesley Free Library Foundation.
Keith grew up in Florida but has called Massachusetts home since 1979. He has an undergraduate degree from Florida State University and a law degree from Boston University. He also has a master’s degree in history from the University of Virginia where he wrote his thesis on the development of the university library in 19th century America. He has practiced corporate and securities law at Ropes & Gray in Boston continuously since 1982, broken only by three and a half years during which he was Director of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Keith also serves as Secretary and pro bono counsel to Upstream, an organization committed to expanding opportunity and reducing unplanned pregnancy across the United States.
Keith and his late wife Andrea moved to Wellesley in 1990 and raised two sons, both of whom went to Fiske Elementary School and one of whom graduated from Wellesley High School. Keith is an avid cyclist (having ridden a dozen times in the Pan Mass Challenge), a middling gardener, a mediocre golfer and a voracious and eclectic reader.
Ken has achieved his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University, an MBA from the
University of California, Berkeley, CA, his Masters in Tax from Bentley University, and his Masters in
Financial Services from the Institute of Business and Finance.
While as the Vice Chair of Finance on the Board of Trustees of MassBay Community
College, Ken was responsible for directing the finances of the college where he led them to operating
under a fiscal budget and generated a surplus of eight times the value from when he started. He also
saw similar success while working as an outside business auditor for Price Waterhouse Cooper. Ken’s
corporate experience gained at Endwave Corporation and Cisco Systems continued to develop his skill
set in financial operations, risk management, controllership, operational analysis, internal controls, and
corporate strategy.
As a team player with hands-on project management and leadership ability, Ken can manage financial matters at strategic and operational levels and is adept at quickly finding and implementing creative and effective solutions to financial problems. Ken is thrilled to see businesses thrive under his direction.
As the Finance Planning Manager for European operations for Digital Equipment, he was responsible to
the forecasting of results for a $7 Billion operation with 26 subsidiaries in Europe with a focus on
budgets, forecasting and currency hedging against the dollar, Ken developed a keen sense of working in
international environments and cultures. He lived in Geneva Switzerland for five years carrying out his
responsibility.
Just prior to joining Affiliated Financial Services as Managing Partner, Ken had started his own very
successful Tax, Accounting and Financial Planning practice in Westborough, MA. Ken’s team who remained
with him during this transition, are experienced tax professionals and support both local and
international clientele from China, Finland, Singapore, Peru and the United Kingdom.
Ken has a passion for helping to educate and mentor people through sharing his knowledge
and experience. Ken served as an Adjunct Professor at Babson College for 4 years at the undergraduate
and graduate level teaching accounting and tax. Ken enjoys doing seminars on Tax and business
consulting practices. He also mentors students from MassBay Community College and Framingham
State University.
Ken lives with his wife Pearl in Wellesley, MA. They share two adult sons with three beautiful
grandchildren.
Amiee Munro has lived in Wellesley since 2009 with her husband, Bill, and three boys who are currently students at WMS & WHS. A lifelong lover of the written word, Amiee spent her early career in publishing, first as a Business Manager at Conde Nast and then in marketing and subsidiary rights at Little, Brown, Inc. and the Perseus Books Group. Currently, Amiee is a real estate agent with Donahue Maley | Burns Team / Compass, eager to share her knowledge and love of Wellesley with all potential residents.
An active community volunteer and fundraiser, Amiee has served as Fiske PTO President, Auction Chair, Wild West Chair and spent five years as a member of the Wellesley Hills Junior Women’s Club, including Community Outreach Chair, Wonder Run Chair and Nominating Committee Member. Currently, Amiee serves as the town wide Scouting for Food coordinator, on the WMS book fair committee, and the WHS Cotillion Committee. A graduate of Connecticut College, Amiee resided in Washington DC, New York City and Boston before settling in Wellesley.
Catherine Simpson Bueker is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Emmanuel College in Boston, where she has taught for 15 years. She focuses on issues of race, ethnicity, immigration and civic engagement and has published books, chapters, essays, and peer-reviewed articles on those topics. Her books include From Immigrant to Naturalized Citizen (LFB Press 2006) and The Experiences of Women of Color in an Elite US Public School (Palgrave MacMillan 2017). Her articles have appeared in the journals The International Migration Review; Race, Ethnicity, and Education; The Journal of International Migration and Integration; and Contexts, among others. She has also published entries related to race and immigration in the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism. Her current project focuses on the ways in which established Americans do or do not recognize and experience increasing diversity in their community. She has been a Visiting Scholar and Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. Bueker holds a BA in American Studies from Cornell University and an MA and PhD in Sociology from Brown University.
Alexa has lived in Wellesley since 2010 with her husband Robert and their three daughters Lucy (16), Molly (14) and Lila (12) who attend the Wellesley Public Schools. She would be remiss to not include additional family members Coco and Java, their two beloved chocolate labs.
Alexa spent a career in financial services and retired in 2017 after 14 years at Fidelity and prior stints at Charles Schwab and Franklin Templeton. After retiring from financial services, she joined a volunteer training program at the Museum of Fine Arts and now leads art tours across the collections, as well as participating in a number of other program activities.
Throughout her years in Wellesley, Alexa has remained active and committed to community. She has held or currently holds a Board or leadership position in the Wellesley Chapter of the National Charity League, the Wellesley Education Foundation and has been active in planning events for PTOs and neighborhood associations. Her family enjoys the Wellesley Free Library and she looks forward to participating in Board activities to help the library evolve to meet growing community demands.
Stephanie Coughlan founded Image Intelligence in 2018 with the mission of
using her style expertise and marketing background, honed over 25 years in
the fashion and design industry, to help accelerate clients’ professional
advancement by creating outward images that mirror their accomplishments.
Prior to founding Image Intelligence, Stephanie spent time in executive roles at
Glamour, SELF Magazine, and Hearst UK, and ran Responsible Media from
1999 to 2016, where she represented media brands including Vogue, The New
Yorker, SELF, and GQ. She leverages her extensive fashion, media, and
marketing experience to help men and women curate professional, yet
authentic personal brands.
During Stephanie’s time representing Vogue, women often approached
her for style advice to increase their influence in the workplace.
Recognizing a need for professional guidance dedicated to enhancing
personal style as a step to achieving life goals, Stephanie decided to fill
that gap in the marketplace. At Image Intelligence, she and her team go
beyond the role of “stylists” to be “perception consultants,” discovering
clients’ life goals first, then tailoring their outward appearances to help
achieve them. Through one-on-one consultations, group webinars, and
corporate presentations, Stephanie has helped professionals of all ages
own their self-confidence, reclaim time to engage in meaningful pursuits,
and rise up the corporate ladder. Stephanie has a BA from Denison
University and a graduate degree from Harvard University Extension
School in Marketing Management and Harvard Business School’s
Executive Education program. She honed her image consulting skills
through multiple programs at the Fashion Institute of Technology and
The Image Resource Center of New York.
Stephanie’s core values of integrity, generosity, and community building carry
over to her personal life, where she engages in over 100 hours of philanthropic
work every year. She is a founding member of the Stifel Paralysis Research
Foundation Fall Ball––a foundation which has been her family’s life’s work––and
serves on the boards of multiple non-profits, including the National Charity
League and Big Sisters of Boston. A full-time parent, in her free time she enjoys
hanging out with her awesome daughter and husband, traveling, playing sports,
bringing friends together, and finding new, diverse, and sustainable fashion
brands to support. Stephanie currently serves as VP of Philanthropy for National
Charity League, as a member of the Fashion Show and Development
Committees for Big Sister Assoc. of Boston. Her previous volunteer service
includes serving as Vice President of Strategic Planning and & Donations for
Wellesley Hills Junior Women’s Club.
David earned a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California and an
MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
David applied his engineering skills on the Space Shuttle program and then helped set up an electronics
manufacturing facility near Portland, Oregon for a Japanese automotive components supplier. After
receiving his MBA, he worked at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant for nearly 11 years,
finishing in the role of partner. He supported clients on topics related to sales and marketing strategy out
of the Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Boston offices. Since leaving McKinsey, David has focused most of
his career on cancer screening and early detection with business leadership roles at Cytyc, Hologic, and
Exact Sciences (where he works today). David is currently focused on developing and bringing to market
a blood test that will screen for multiple cancers in one test.
David and his spouse, Julie, live in Wellesley. They have 7 adult daughters/step-daughters. David has
recoverable fluency in Japanese and loves all kinds of travel. He is an avid reader, loves to sing, and
enjoys participating in a wide variety of sports with a focus on cycling, tennis, and golf. David currently
serves on the board of Rising Star Outreach (an organization that seeks to lift those suffering from
leprosy in India) and the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He is also an active volunteer in his local
church.
Luisa Hunnewell grew up in Wellesley and moved to New York after business school where she
remained until she and her husband, Larry Newman, retired back to Wellesley in 2020.
Luisa spent 16 years at a major US based financial institution, followed by a second career at
an early pioneer in the private equity secondaries arena. Luisa and Larry raised their two
children in NYC and were very involved in their communities. Luisa held leadership positions on
various co-op boards and school Parents Organizations, volunteered in the school library and
as a tour guide. She also volunteered in the NYC public schools and ran a church lunch
program for seniors.
Luisa is currently on the Finance Committee at St. Andrews Church, does fundraising for her
business school class and volunteers at Rosie’s Place in Boston. Luisa and Larry are enjoying
retirement in Wellesley, doing lots of gardening and getting to know this community. Luisa enjoys
tennis, skating, hiking, and traveling with family and grandchildren.
She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the
Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth.
Chrissie grew up in Wellesley and returned with her husband, John, in 1992 to raise their family here. Chrissie graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in English Literature and from the Wharton School of Business at UPenn with an MBA in Marketing. Chrissie began her career in Massachusetts as a Consumer Products Marketer with Gorton’s of Gloucester. After eight years, she switched gears and joined Rutledge Properties, the family real estate business owned by her mother. Ever since, Chrissie has been a leading agent in town. Pointing out what is outstanding about Wellesley – especially the Library – is an everyday activity for Chrissie as she welcomes new families to town.
Chrissie and John have four adult children, all of whom attended Hunnewell Elementary School and spent many hours at the Wellesley Free Library next door. Chrissie has served as a coach and President of Wellesley Youth Lacrosse and has cheered on innumerable Wellesley Youth and High School teams. She has served as a Town Meeting Member since 2009. Chrissie is a lifelong voracious reader, a member of multiple book groups, and plays as much tennis as possible.
After a brief stint as a graduate assistant coach following her four years at Amherst College, Molly Manning spent a twenty-five year career in the investment industry in New York City and Boston. She started with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., working with institutional clients, before moving to Boston and joining NEPC as an investment consultant. She then transitioned back to investment management working first for GMO LLC, and most recently, overseeing sales, consultant relations, and client service at Income, Research + Management, from where she retired in late 2022. Currently, Molly serves on the Board and Investment Committee of the Holy Cross Family Ministries Foundation to keep tabs on the investment world.
Molly spends her free time with her family, husband, Mike, her three stepsons, all of whom graduated from Wellesley High School after many hours in the library, and her two sons, who are at Wellesley Middle School and Wellesley High School. She still loves coaching, finding the sidelines of basketball and lacrosse games whenever she can. Her future plans include spending time with her family, taking walks with their dog, Lola, and tackling the never-ending stack of books on her nightstand.
Carol Almeda Morrow leverages over 25 years of experience to lead top-and bottom-line
growth via marketing and communication initiatives for her clients. She specializes in
developing brand identity, positioning, and competitive differentiation, as well as
cultivating opportunities in new and existing stakeholder segments.
A passionate fundraiser at heart, Carol has led the fundraising efforts for several
charitable and political organizations, raising multi-million dollars in the last 25 years.
Carol possesses a depth of knowledge and experience in formulating powerful
development strategies, as well as in designing and driving a wide range of integrated
donor-centric marketing campaigns that best engage the target audiences.
Carol currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for the Currier Museum of
Arts, as well as a member of the Director’s Circle at the American Repertory Theater at
Harvard University. Carol was formerly a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting
and is currently the managing principal at Morningstar Consulting Group.
Carol received her MBA in Economics and Marketing Strategy from the University of
Chicago Booth School of Business, and her BA in Organization Psychology from the
University of Michigan.
Carol and her late husband, Joe, have four children, all of whom have graduated from
Wellesley High School.
Having been born the daughter of a classicist and teacher of Renaissance drama—who actually spoke “in Shakespeare” more often than one would think possible–it was probably inevitable that Nora Tracy Phillips, with a richer-than-worked-for array of words in her head and a passion for things literary, would, herself, wind up a teacher.
With an English degree from Princeton, an unsatisfying paralegal experience, and a much more satisfying experience as the editorial assistant to the academic journal Shakespeare Quarterly (with an office inside the Folger Shakespeare Library) under her belt, Nora went on to teach English to 10th-12th grade students at McLean, Virginia’s The Madeira School. There, she delighted most in opportunities to bring literature studied to life for her students—driving them in a van to hear Ralph Ellison and Rita Dove read from their works and answer questions at the Library of Congress; creating a school-wide Shakespeare acting festival; organizing a field trip to NYC for all 11th grade students to watch (and then critically discuss) a Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire.
It was with this background that when Nora, her husband Tim, and their then-children, Jonathan and Susannah, found themselves living in Wellesley, Nora quite quickly found her way to both the Wellesley Cultural Council and to Creative Arts and Sciences at the Hardy School. For 10 happy years, Nora went from school rep to Chair of the Townwide Creative Arts and Sciences Committee, working with WPS teachers and administrators to find impactful, academic, enrichment programming from the “outside world.” For the Wellesley Cultural Council, Nora has been involved with bringing programs in the arts and education to Wellesley to enrich the cultural lives of its citizens (in what little way it can) for years now.
Otherwise, Nora has been a career volunteer over most of the past 30 years—in Wellesley, working a variety of leadership positions in the public schools, as member and sometimes Chair of the Wellesley Cultural Council, on the Board of the Wellesley Education Foundation, teaching and serving as a Reader at St. Andrew’s Church, serving as a member of Town Meeting. Outside of Wellesley, Nora has volunteered as a tutor for low/no income students trying to pass the high school equivalency test in Roxbury, as the long time “Form Director” of her class at St. Paul’s School in Concord NH, and to help create alumni discussion panels for reunions at Princeton University.
Tripp is currently a Managing Director with Marsh McLennan Companies, a global professional services and insurance firm. Prior to beginning his career in insurance, Tripp spent a year in marketing with the Los Angeles Clippers, worked for USA Basketball at various National Sports Festivals and Olympic Trials and was a basketball training site manager for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Tripp is active in the community, having been a board member of the Wellesley Youth Basketball Association, the Community Fund for Wellesley, the Wellesley Club, a Wellesley Recreation Commission Commissioner, Chair of the Wellesley Playing Fields Task Force and a member of the Morses Pond Beach Advisory Committee.
Tripp, his wife Betsy and their two sons have lived in Wellesley for 23 years.