CPE Employee Spotlight with Jonathan Tucker

July 11, 2019

Jonathan Tucker is the Grants Manager on CPE’s Development Team, managing, writing, winning, and reporting on grants from foundations to ensure CPE’s programs are well funded and sustainable. He helps CPE communicate the crucial importance and deep impact of our successful mentoring program to institutional funders, and works to bring more foundations into the family of CPE’s funding partners.

What college did you attend?

First 2 years out of high school I went to Boston University where I did the Core Curriculum program. Transferred to Univ. of Maryland, College Park and finished with two bachelors degrees, one in Sociology and one in Government & Politics. At UMD I also co-founded a poetry organization still operating to this day, called TerPoets.

If you could learn to do anything, what would it be?

Understand all languages, human and animal languages 😉

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

I like producing, curating, organizing, and hosting arts programs and events, including poetry, theatre, music, photography, dance, and educational experiences. In my free time I run an international exchange program called Azania to DC, bringing artists, mostly poets and visual artists, from Pretoria, South Africa to Washington, DC and from DC to South Africa. I also host the open mic at Busboys and Poets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month and have been known to write and perform poetry. Now I prefer to give others the mic and help create bigger and better platforms for spoken word poets and radical artists. 

If you could meet anyone, who would it be?

My father’s father died when my dad was ten years old. Though he was a problematic person, I’d be very curious to meet that grandfather I never had a chance to meet.

What three traits define you?

Love. Service. Creativity.

What’s the most rewarding aspect about managing CPE’s grants process?

Winning grants which allow us to expand our program services and impact more students and families in DC is extremely rewarding. I also like the challenge of crafting different and compelling ways to tell the story of what CPE’s mentoring does and how it has impacted the lives of so many people in the DC area.

What is your favorite part about working for CPE?

The people are awesome.