As Vice President for Sports Philanthropy and Affiliated Funds, John manages grant making for the Atlanta Falcons Youth Foundation and the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch Fund. The Youth Foundation invests more than $2 million annually across Georgia, working to reduce youth obesity and increase youth fitness. Staff at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch lead charitable giving in Gallatin and Park counties. Previously the foundation's vice president for strategic planning and evaluation, John joined the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation in June 2004 after leaving the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation where he was the director of planning and evaluation.

A former media research consultant, John holds a Ph.D. in mass communication research from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his investigation of journalists’ attitudes toward the communities they cover, John identified well-organized public journalism belief systems that complement and compete with traditional belief systems. Prior to joining Knight Foundation, John worked as a writer and editor for the Education Statistics Services Institute of the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C., and columnist with the Chapel Hill (N.C.) Herald-Sun.

John is a native of Winston-Salem, N.C. and is married to Elizabeth Ross Bare of Concord, N.C.