Black Funders Network of the Bay Area Announces 5th Anniversary Celebration Hosts: Fred Blackwell and Angela Glover Blackwell
- Black Funders Network Of the Bay Area
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
The Black Funders Network of the Bay Area is incredibly excited to announce the hosts for our 5th Anniversary Celebration: Angela Glover Blackwell (Founder in Residence at PolicyLink) and Fred Blackwell (Chief Executive Officer of The San Francisco Foundation). Fred and Angela are giants in community development, social equity, resident-led community change, and public-sector systems change, as well as in grantmaking at the national and local levels. In addition, Angela and Fred are mother and son.
Angela Glover Blackwell is Founder in Residence at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity for all. She established deep roots in the community, translating lived experiences into national policy and utilizing philanthropy as an effective strategy for systemic change. Fred Blackwell is a nationally recognized community leader with a longstanding career in the Bay Area. He has applied systems thinking to shift one of the country’s largest community foundations and direct resources for maximum equity and inclusion across the Bay Area. Fred works hand in hand with donors, community leaders, and public and private partners to create thriving communities throughout the Bay Area.
Together, the duo stands as a living example of how a multi-generational commitment to community success and justice, along with institutional philanthropy, can amplify the community's trajectory from the neighborhood level to national policy. BFN is honored to have them as speakers at the event.
Fred Blackwell
Chief Executive Officer
Fred Blackwell is the CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, one of the largest community foundations in the country. San Francisco Foundation works hand-in-hand with donors, community leaders, and public and private partners to create thriving communities throughout the Bay Area. Since joining the foundation in 2014, Blackwell has renewed its commitment to social justice through an equity agenda focused on racial and economic inclusion.
Blackwell, an Oakland native, is a nationally recognized community leader with a longstanding career in the Bay Area. Before joining the foundation, he served as interim city administrator for the City of Oakland, where he previously served as the assistant city administrator. He was the executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and director of the SF Mayor’s Office of Community Development; he served as the director of the Making Connections Initiative for the Annie E. Casey Foundation in the Lower San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland; he was a Multicultural Fellow in Neighborhood and Community Development at San Francisco Foundation; and he subsequently managed a multiyear comprehensive community initiative for the San Francisco Foundation in West Oakland.
Blackwell serves on the boards of the Latino Community Foundation, All Home Advisory Board, California Black Freedom Fund, Association of Black Foundation Executives, UC Berkeley Letters & Science Advisory Board, SF Bay Area Host Committee Advisory Board for Super Bowl 2025, California Academy of Sciences, and the Mentoring Center Board of Directors. He previously served on the San Francisco Federal Reserve Community Advisory Council, California Redevelopment Association, Urban Habitat Program, NCG, and LeaderSpring boards. He is a visiting professor in the City and Regional Planning Department at UC Berkeley. He holds a Master’s Degree in City Planning from UC Berkeley and a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Studies from Morehouse College.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Founder in Residence
Angela Glover Blackwell is Founder in Residence at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity for all. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink gained national prominence in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. Angela is also the host of the Reimagining Democracy for a Good Life podcast and the Radical Imagination podcast and Professor of Practice at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.
Prior to founding PolicyLink, Angela served as Senior Vice President at The Rockefeller Foundation. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Urban Strategies Council. From 1977 to 1987, Angela was a partner at Public Advocates. Angela is also the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, and the author of The Curb Cut Effect (2017) and How We Achieve a Multiracial Democracy (2023) published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
As a leading voice in the movement for equity in America, Angela serves on numerous boards. She advised the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve as one of 15 members of its inaugural Community Advisory Council, and in 2020 was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the state Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. She is the 2018 recipient of the John W. Gardner Leadership Award, presented by the Independent Sector, and in 2017, she received the Peter E. Haas Public Service Award from the University of California, Berkeley.