Robert “Bob” Storey, whose distinguished legal career as a partner at several law firms also included serving as a trustee at The Kresge Foundation, died June 11, 2025, at age 89. Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson issued the following statement.

It is with deep sadness that I share news of the passing of Robert “Bob” Storey, who served as a Kresge Foundation trustee from 1993 to 2008.

Born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1936 and raised in Cleveland, Bob graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University, where he met his wife, Juanita (Nita). After serving as a Marine Corps captain and earning his law degree from Case Western Reserve University, Bob began his legal career as an attorney with East Ohio Gas and then as the assistant director of the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. He then moved on to a distinguished corporate law career while serving on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Procter & Gamble, Verizon Communications, The Gund Foundation, Spelman College, Case Western Reserve University and Kresge.

Bob’s vision and leadership helped shape Kresge into the institution we are today. He was an acute observer of board governance, playing an instrumental role in rewriting our bylaws and articles of incorporation and in giving definition to our Compensation and Nominating Committees. He was the foundation’s first Black trustee, regularly reminding us with forcefulness, yet grace, that our mission needed to be grounded in addressing the structural obstacles to full opportunity for the nation’s most disadvantaged citizens.

That commitment was perhaps most visible in Bob’s advocacy for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As a trustee of Spelman, he recognized the immeasurable value and untapped potential of HBCUs and the need to remove the obstacles that prevented many HBCUs from accessing Kresge’s traditional capital challenge grants. In that vein, he helped develop the groundbreaking $18 million HBCU Initiative in 1999 — one of Kresge’s largest investments outside traditional capital challenge grants. The initiative helped build the fundraising capacity of five HBCUs — Bethune Cookman College, Dillard University, Johnson C. Smith University, Meharry Medical College and Xavier University — and provided additional forms of support, including training, convening, mentoring and technical assistance.

Bob understood that for philanthropy to be genuinely strategic, it needed not only to provide project-specific infusions of capital, but also investments in infrastructure capable of ensuring an organization’s long-term financial sustainability. In breaking from our customary grantmaking orientation, this approach created a model for capacity building that paved the way for the grantmaking reforms we would set in motion in 2006.

Perhaps nowhere was Bob’s impact more evident than in his passionate advocacy for Detroit and his support for the Detroit Initiative, which expanded Kresge’s work in the city and became the precursor of today’s Detroit Program.

On a personal note, when I joined Kresge in 2006, Bob extended what I can only describe as the warmest, most supportive welcome a new executive could hope for. I’ll always treasure the hours spent with Bob and his wife Nita at their homes in Cleveland and St. Augustine, Florida, talking about his career, his commitment to Cleveland, his passion for Detroit, and his aspirations for how Kresge might adapt its approaches to reach more people in need. Those conversations were simultaneously a masterclass, tutorial and new employee orientation — all delivered with Bob’s characteristic humility, grace and good humor. He taught me that effective leadership in philanthropy requires both strategic thinking and deep empathy, both institutional knowledge and willingness to evolve.

In recognition of Bob’s retirement from the board after 15 years of service, he asked that his honorary gift be made to St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in St. Augustine, Florida. Founded by emancipated slaves on the site of a plantation house in the late 1800s, the Church offered community-wide programs, including a medical clinic and academic scholarships for disadvantaged residents. Bob’s directive was that the grant be used to establish an Arts and Cultural Center. Today the church continues to serve an inclusive and diverse community through “progressive Christianity,” which it defines as an open, intelligent and collaborative approach to the Christian tradition.

Bob’s influence endures in our commitment to sound governance, our support for HBCUs, our embrace of Detroit, and our efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion. As we mourn his passing, we also celebrate a life of extraordinary service and impact.

May he rest in peace.