Board Officers
Board Chair
Dr. Abigail E. Disney
Abigail Disney advocates for real changes to the way capitalism operates in today's world. She has worked for thirty years with programs for low-income families, women's rights, and global poverty. She is an Emmy-Winning Documentary Filmmaker, activist, and co-founder of Fork Films, a nonfiction media production company, which produces the weekly podcast, All Ears, where host Abigail Disney interviews bold, solutions-oriented thinkers from the front lines of America’s urgent inequality and race crises. She is also the Chair and Co-Founder of Level Forward, a new breed storytelling company focused on systemic change through creative excellence, balancing financial and social returns. She also created the nonprofit Peace is Loud, which uses storytelling to advance social movements, and the Daphne Foundation, which supports organizations working for a more equitable, fair, and peaceful New York City.
Treasurer
Dr. Paul Budde
Dr. Budde received an MA in Theology from The Catholic University of America and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. For most of his career he worked as a property catastrophe reinsurance actuary. He is recently retired.
Secretary
Rev. Steven D. Martin
Steven Martin has served United Methodist Churches as pastor for twenty years and is a graduate of Candler School of Theology. He brings his expertise in theology, the intersection of faith and politics, and media production to bear upon today’s most challenging problems.
He has produced several films for public television; his writing has appeared in America’s top national media outlets including the Washington Post and USA Today. Steven has served as the Director of Communications and Development for the National Council of Churches in Washington, DC. He speaks frequently at churches, seminaries, and conventions across the US.
In 2007 Rev. Martin was honored at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for his work with “Theologians Under Hitler.” Steven worked with the Obama Administration on an important policy and social media campaign, “Know Your Neighbor,” aimed at reducing religious-based bigotry in the US. Steven serves as the secretary of the Board of Governors for the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute, the advisory board for Shoulder-to-Shoulder, and is a member of the National Press Club.
Governors
The Honorable Suzan D. Johnson Cook D. Min.
Rev. Dr. Cook is a presidential advisor, pastor, theologian, author, activist, and academic who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom from April 2011 to October 2013. She has had a wide-ranging career in a number of fields, serving as a policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and later to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a dean and professor of communications at Harvard University, a professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary, and a pastor at a number of churches.
Prof. Connie Rice
Connie Rice is now “happily working at retirement” after spending more than 23 years as an English and Psychology Professor at Northwest University. She received her BA from California State University in Chico and her MA from Tennessee State University.