Terri Lee Freeman

Terri Freeman, President of The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region for the past 15 years, is responsible for furthering the mission of The Community Foundation to strengthen the metropolitan Washington region by encouraging and promoting effective giving and demonstrating leadership on critical community issues. Under Ms. Freeman’s leadership, the Foundation’s assets have grown six-fold since 1996 establishing the Foundation as the largest local grant maker in the metropolitan Washington region, and one of the top fifty foundations nationwide, with grants of nearly $56 million in fiscal year 2010.

Under her leadership, the Foundation has been instrumental in focusing attention and grant dollars on promoting equity, access and opportunity for the region’s low-income residents, and increasing their ability to participate in greater Washington’s prosperity. Ms. Freeman and the Foundation are advocates for change on improving public education systems, expanding workforce development programs opportunities and regional efforts to reduce growing disparities of education, income and quality of life.

In November 2008 in response to the deepening recession, the Foundation established the Neighbors in Need Fund to provide much need financial support to area nonprofit organizations providing safety net services to a growing number of residents in need. Since that time the fund has grown to $5 million and has made grants of $4.7 million to nonprofit organizations throughout the region, directly supporting more than 100,000 residents.

The Foundation has a history of responding to crises in the metropolitan Washington region. Immediately following September 11th, the Foundation established the Survivors’ Fund to provide long-term support to the survivors of the attack on the Pentagon. The Fund was the largest in the country devoted exclusively to the Pentagon survivors, raising more than $25 million. A year after the attacks, the Foundation convened leaders in the nonprofit sector to create the Greater Washington Nonprofit Task Force on Emergency Preparedness, focused on increasing the preparedness of the nonprofit sector in times of disaster. Ms. Freeman has become a leader and spokesperson in the nonprofit community on issues of emergency preparedness.

In 2011 Washingtonian Magazine identified Ms. Freeman as one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington. The Washington Business Journal identified Ms. Freeman as one of the “Women Who Mean Business” in 2005. In spring 2004, Washington Life Magazine, identified Ms. Freeman as a “Woman of Substance and Style”. She was also named a Washingtonian of the Year in 2002. A graduate of the 1996 class of Leadership Greater Washington, Ms. Freeman has served on a variety of boards. She currently serves as Chair of the board of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers; serves a board member for Trinity University; Venture Philanthropy Partners, and the CFSC/CFIP. She was just elected to the board of DC Vote, which pursues voting rights for the residents of the District of Columbia.

Prior to joining The Community Foundation, Ms. Freeman was the founding executive director of the Freddie Mac Foundation, one of the largest corporate foundations in the metropolitan Washington region.

Ms. Freeman obtained her bachelor's degree in Journalism/Communication Arts from the University of Dayton in 1981 and received a master's degree in organizational communication management from Howard University in 1983. She is married to the Reverend Bowyer Freeman and has three daughters.