Trustees

Deborah Leff is President of the Public Welfare Foundation, a half-billion dollar philanthropy based in Washington, D.C. that is dedicated to ensuring fundamental rights and opportunities for people in need. Its grantmaking is focused on Health Care Reform, Workers’ Rights, and Criminal and Juvenile Justice.

From 2001-2006, Ms. Leff was Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. She has held a variety of leadership positions in the public, private, and non-profit sectors including CEO of Feeding America (formerly known as America's Second Harvest), the nation's largest domestic hunger relief organization, and president of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, a policy-oriented foundation known for its innovative approaches in funding for environmental improvement, gun violence reduction, campaign finance reform, and welfare reform. Ms. Leff was Senior Producer at ABC News Nightline, ABC News World News Tonight, and ABC News 20/20 from 1983 to 1992, where she won DuPont and Emmy Awards for news coverage such as a week-long World News Tonight series on children in poverty and Nightline's coverage of the Middle East.

Ms. Leff has also held several positions with the federal government, including Trial Attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and Director of Public Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission.

Ms. Leff received her undergraduate degree cum laude from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where she was named a University Scholar. She earned her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. She currently chairs the board of directors of Sound Portraits and StoryCorps, the Peabody Award winning producer of NPR radio programming. She previously chaired the Midwest Committee for the Selection of Rhodes Scholars and served on the national boards of CARE — the international relief and development agency — the Children's Defense Fund and the Women's Legal Defense Fund.

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