Sterling Speirn

After stints as a classroom teacher, legal aid lawyer, and community health center manager, for the last 40 years I have worked in corporate, community and private foundations, at Apple Computer, Peninsula Community Foundation (now Silicon Valley CF) and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. I've worked across a range of issues including early childhood literacy, racial justice, the social determinants of health, financial security, civic engagement, and the end of life. In 2018, as CEO of the National Conference on Citizenship, I was invited to serve on the American Academy of Arts & Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship that published in 2020 “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century.” In 2021-22 I served as Interim CEO at the Maine Community Foundation, and in 2022-23 as Interim CEO at CFLeads. I have just completed two terms as a Director of the Greater Washington Community Foundation, where I have a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). Through my DAF, I support more than forty nonpartisan pro-democracy groups, including structural reform groups, deliberative dialogue/bridging groups, civic education groups, local journalism and pro-social civic tech. I also support several 501(c)(4) organizations such as National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers, Leadership Now Project, and Partners in Democracy. I serve on the Advisory Board for CivxNow and am a member of PACE funders: Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement and the Democracy Funders Network. I also love community gardening and riding bicycles.