Holy Wisdom Monastery announces next CEO

Middleton, WI, May 8, 2020 – The Benedictine Women of Madison Board of Directors at Holy Wisdom Monastery is pleased to announce the appointment of Charles P. McLimans as the organizations next Chief Executive Officer. He will join Holy Wisdom Monastery on July 1, 2020.

Charles McLimans currently serves as president and CEO of The River Food Pantry where he oversees all organizational strategies, while facilitating collaborative opportunities to achieve a fully nourished community. Prior to The River, McLimans served as the president and CEO of anti-hunger organizations including Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin—Wisconsin’s largest food bank—and Loaves and Fishes Community Services—a leading hunger relief and anti-poverty organization in the Chicago area recognized for its innovative food and collective impact programs. McLimans began his quest to solve hunger in 2006 as a volunteer with Loaves and Fishes, whose board of directors ultimately asked him to lead the organization. For the past 14 years, McLimans has successfully guided and inspired aggressive, innovative and visionary solutions to food insecurity and poverty issues. McLimans attended the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With decades of both corporate and nonprofit experience, McLimans credits his success as a nonprofit leader to having worked on both sides of the philanthropic coin and to the work ethic he learned from his parents growing up on a dairy farm in Southwest Wisconsin.

McLimans explains leaving The River Food Pantry, “For many years I have been yearning and searching for a way to integrate my faith and professional lives. Now I am overjoyed to commit all I have to this place I call home.”

McLimans has served on the Benedictine Women of Madison Board of Directors for the past year and considers Holy Wisdom Monastery his spiritual home, where he is a member of the Sunday Assembly worshipping community, the Oblate community, a group that incorporates Benedictine spirituality into their daily lives and the Friends of Wisdom Prairie. As a Board member, McLimans played a significant role in Holy Wisdom Monastery’s strategic planning process, introducing Appreciative Inquiry and the SOAR process to the board.

“My short term goals are to help Holy Wisdom navigate the effects of the COVDI-19 crisis on our finances and to find innovative ways to engage all of the communities that make up Holy Wisdom Monastery, while focusing on our strengths. I look forward to developing the Aspirations portion of our planning process when we are able to imagine what the future of the Monastery will look like, and then to collaboratively co-create it along with the coworkers and community members,” outlines McLimans.

Sister Mary David Walgenbach, OSB, president of the Benedictine Women of Madison Board, is pleased to welcome McLimans to lead Holy Wisdom Monastery into the future. “We are thrilled that Charles is our next CEO. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in nonprofit leadership as well as a strong spiritual background. We are excited for Charles to help us with our mission of weaving prayer, hospitality, justice and care of the earth into a shared way of life.”

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Holy Wisdom Monastery is a retreat and meeting center and Benedictine monastery in Middleton, WI and is open to all. The monastery, established in 1953, is located on 130 acres of restored prairie and woodland overlooking Lake Mendota. The monastery building was awarded the highest rating in the US for environmental and energy conservation design in 2010. Holy Wisdom Monastery also offers environmental education and spirituality programs throughout the year, prairie restoration volunteer opportunities and Christian church services every Sunday. More information on Holy Wisdom Monastery is available at HolyWisdomMonastery.org.