Magdalena Beltrán-del Olmo is the vice president of communications for The California Wellness Foundation, which is nationally recognized in the field of philanthropy for its strategic communications program and public education campaigns. Beltrán-del Olmo has more than 20 years professional experience in journalism, communications management and social marketing. Before joining the Foundation in 1996, Beltrán-del Olmo was a director of public affairs and communications for Kaiser Permanente in the Los Angeles area. Prior to that, she was vice president at Coronado Communications — a firm specializing in social marketing — where she oversaw public education, entertainment and corporate accounts, including the national, multilingual, multimedia public education campaign for the 1986 immigration amnesty legalization and the California tobacco education campaign. As associate director with the USC-based California Chicano News Media Association (CCNMA) in the 1980s, she developed the nation’s first computerized job referral service for ethnic journalists in the news media, helping more than 300 professionals and students be hired by major news media organizations across the country. She worked with CCNMA to help found the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Beltrán-del Olmo has worked as a newspaper reporter with the Orange County Register and Gannett-owned Salinas Californian. She has received numerous awards for her communications and advocacy work, among them a national recognition for a public broadcasting program on domestic violence, several Public Relations Society of America’s PRISM awards and five nods from the Council on Foundations and Communications Network to receive their highest award for communications excellence, the Wilmer Shields Rich Award. Beltrán-del Olmo is a member of the Communications Network board of directors and the Council on Foundations’ communications committee. She volunteers her communications expertise for the Cure Autism Now Foundation. She graduated in 1982 with degrees in journalism and Mexican-American studies from California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where she received the Outstanding Graduate in Journalism award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. She was inducted in Kappa Tau Alpha, the national honor society for journalism and mass communications.

Roni Hooper is a former communications officer with The California Wellness Foundation and currently contributes as a writer and editor of TCWF publications. During her five years at the Foundation, she worked closely with the vice president of communications to set up and manage the department. She oversaw the Foundation’s printed communications materials, including the annual report, quarterly newsletter, the Reflections series and press materials. She also contributed to the implementation and evaluation of the Foundation’s overall strategic plan. Before joining the Foundation, Hooper volunteered as a teacher and fundraising consultant for Children of the Street Welfare Association (CHISWEA) in Tanzania, East Africa for one year. While in Tanzania, she held regular classes for street children, consulted with CHISWEA’s board of directors on its strategic plan and helped raise money for a newly constructed center that serves about 50 street children daily. She worked previously with Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois as manager of public information, where she produced semiannual newsletters, annual reports, press releases and fundraising appeals, and managed a database of 25,000 donors. Her background also includes child care work for abused and neglected children at Lutherbrook Children’s Center in Addison, Illinois. Hooper received her bachelor’s degree in religion from California Lutheran University in 1989, and her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Southern California in 2000. She is a member of the Communications Network and Women in Philanthropy affinity groups of the Council on Foundations. She also works as program manager of the parenting education program of Interface Children Family Services in Camarillo, California.