During a career spanning more than 35 years, Ed Church has consulted with NASA, the US State Department and Nike, has started successful nonprofit organizations, winning awards from the City of Oakland and the State of California, and served as the Chief of Staff for the Mayor of Berkeley. He has advised California cities as diverse as Dublin, Pleasanton and Oakland on the implementation of land use policies and practices, and has served as Mentor and Judge for social venture business competitions at Stanford, UC Berkeley and the University of Washington.
As Founding Executive Director of the Berkeley Community Fund, Ed pioneered the directed use of philanthropy to further social equity. He continued that approach as Director of the Livable Communities Initiative at East Bay Community Foundation, to promote “smart growth” in land use and transportation.
At Urban Strategies Council in Oakland, Ed Church directed the early use of innovative geographic information systems to map and research concentrated urban poverty.
As Executive Director of the Institute since 2007, the Institute’s consulting contracts have included ones with the Green MBA program at Dominican University in San Rafael, California, global engineering and design firm Arup, and UC Berkeley as part of the team doing the infrastructure plan for the Global Campus at Richmond Bay.
Ed Church is a popular speaker and writer on environmental sustainability, and preparation for the post-carbon society. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Sociology.