Doug Root
Communications Director
The Heinz Endowments

With an extensive background in newspaper journalism, magazine and book writing, Doug Root has been a leader in the Endowments’ expansion of its internal and external communications efforts. Named communications director in 2005 after four years with the foundation, he and a staff of three serve a wide range of communications functions.

Doug works with the media, acting as spokesman for the Endowments, but he also works with journalists in shaping coverage. He is one of the founders of h, a full-color, quarterly magazine that uses narrative writing and documentary-style photography to explain the work of the foundation and its grantees. He also directs production of other internal publications, the writing and editing of Endowments speeches and materials for the foundation’s Web site.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Pennsylvania State University, Doug began his writing and communications career as a reporter for a small suburban newspaper. He then moved to The Pittsburgh Press, where he rose to become an award-winning senior writer for the Sunday magazine. When the newspaper was sold in 1994, he left daily newspaper work and completed an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship for documentary journalism. He has written for more than a dozen national and regional magazines and is the author of two nonfiction books, including a travel history guide to Pennsylvania. In 1998, he began to concentrate on nonprofit organizations, primarily as a writer for several years of the United Nations’ State of the World’s Children Report. Before joining the Endowments, Doug did some government service, working as communications director for former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy.