PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 9, 2025--
Thirteen dedicated Maricopa County nonprofit leaders were selected for Piper Trust’s 2025 Class of Piper Fellows. The Fellows are:
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“Our 2025 Piper Fellows demonstrated such an astute depth and breadth in their desires to enrich health, well-being, and opportunity for people in our communities,” said Steve Zabilski, president and CEO of Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. “Today we celebrate them and look forward to all that they will add to the collective Piper Fellows community. Today, we also recognize and sincerely thank our inaugural Trust CEO, Dr. Judy Mohraz, now a Trustee, for her infinite wisdom in creating the Piper Fellows program 25 years ago—its transformations continue in so many ways.”
The 2025 Piper Fellows will each participate in a self-designed Fellowship program/plan. Plans include professional development experiences and activities designed to strengthen leadership skills, hands-on learning about current issues, and study at renowned programs. An intentional, connected respite activity that allows the Fellow to reflect on their learnings is also a component. The culmination of each Fellowship is to support the leader (Fellow) and the nonprofit to become even more effective and more connected across sectors in the community. The newly selected class becomes part of the larger and enduring Piper Fellows network, which is now a community of 131 Fellows.
The Fellowship also supports related professional development for the staff and/or board of a Fellow’s organization. After completing the Fellowship, Fellows may apply for an Organizational Enhancement Award to implement learning or programming inspired by their study. In total, a Piper Fellowship offers up to $90,000 in potential grant awards for a Fellow’s organization.
The 2025 Piper Fellows applications were reviewed and selected for recommendation to Piper Trust Trustees by an external committee, comprised of: Marc Ashton, a nonprofit consultant, and, the retired CEO of Foundation for Blind Children (and a 2015 Piper Fellow); Dr. Maria Chavira, Chancellor, The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix; and, Kirk Johnson, Founder/CEO, SOUNDS Academy (and a 2022 Piper Fellow).
About Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust:
Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust supports organizations that enrich health, well-being, and opportunity for the people of Maricopa County, Arizona. Since it began awarding grants in 2000, Piper Trust has invested more than $765 million in local nonprofits and programs. Piper Trust grantmaking areas are healthcare and medical research, children, older adults, arts and culture, education, and religious organizations. For more information, visit pipertrust.org | Facebook | LinkedIn | X. For Piper Trust’s Annual Financial Report, Fiscal Year Ending March 2024, visit FY2024.
Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust 2025 Class of Piper Fellows. Front from left: Latrice Hickman, Jolyana Begay-Kroupa. Middle row: Michael Zirulnik, Debbie Castaldo, Valentina Restrepo-Montoya, Jennifer Caraway, Tracy Leonard-Warner; Piper Trust CEO Steve Zabilski. Back row: Richard Crews, Shonna James, Lloyd Hopkins, Jaclyn Pederson, Nate Rhoton, Eric Spicer.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivian law enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested former President Luis Arce as part of a corruption investigation, opening an uncertain chapter in the country's politics a month after the inauguration of conservative President Rodrigo Paz ended 20 years of socialist rule.
A senior official in Paz's government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Arce had been arrested on five charges related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister in the government of his erstwhile ally and predecessor, former leader Evo Morales. The anti-corruption unit - a special police force dedicated to fighting corruption - confirmed to The Associated Press that Arce was in their custody.
Oviedo described Arce's arrest as proof of the new government's commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels in fulfillment of its flagship campaign promise.
“It is the decision of this government to fight corruption, and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement,” Oviedo said, accusing Arce and other officials of diverting an estimated $700 million from a state-run fund dedicated to supporting the Indigenous people and peasant farmers who formed the backbone of Morales' Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party.
He added: “Arce was identified as the main person responsible for this massive economic damage,” Bolivia's attorney general, Roger Mariaca Montenegro, told local media that Arce had invoked his right to remain silent during police questioning.
Arce's key ally and former government minister, Maria Nela Prada, insisted on the ex-president's innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.
Paz’s government denied that, portraying anti-corruption efforts as a key part of its agenda. Paz swept to victory on a wave of popular outrage over Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in four decades while his straight-talking vice president, Edman Lara, drew a massive following through his backstory as a former police captain who was fired from the force after denouncing corruption on social media.
Far from being a neutral arbiter, the courts in Bolivia have been seen — especially in the country’s past few politically volatile years — as a prize to control by both the left and the right.
Morales became the country’s first Indigenous president in 2006 and governed for 14 years before his 2019 ouster in the wake of mass protests over his disputed re-election to a fourth term.
A divisive right-wing interim government took over and swiftly issued arrest warrants for Morales and his officials, accusing Morales of terrorism and Arce of corruption, among other charges.
But the tables turned in the country's 2020 elections that brought Arce to power. He went on to pursue his political rivals, arresting and ultimately sentencing former interim president Jeanine Añez to 10 years in prison on charges of sedition.
With the pendulum now swinging back to the right under Paz, key opposition leaders including Añez have been released from prison pending further trial.
Celebrating Arce's arrest on social media, Lara vowed that this marked the first of many efforts to prosecute former officials for alleged corruption.
“Those who have stolen from this country will return every last cent,” Lara said, ending his video by wishing “death to the corrupt.”
DeBre reported from Santiago, Chile
FILE - Bolivia's President Luis Arce listens to questions during a press conference at the presidential palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Aug. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
