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Robert (Bob) Friedman founded CFED in 1979 and continues as CFED’s Chair
of the Board and General Counsel. Bob’s most recent initiative is the
launch of CFED’s American Dream Match Funds, an innovative program aimed
to unlock new streams of private and public funding that will catalyze
the growth and capacity of local matched savings programs across the
U.S. In the recent past, Bob was an instrumental leader in the Saving
for Education, Entrepreneurship and Downpayment (SEED) program, an
initiative to create an inclusive system of children’s saving accounts
in the United States. He continues to contribute to numerous efforts to
develop the IDA and asset-building movements, as well as advising on new
strategies to bring excluded communities into the economic mainstream as
entrepreneurs, savers, investors, and skilled employees.
A recognized leader in economic development innovation, Bob has
contributed to the development of the U.S. microenterprise field,
flexible business networks, state and federal entrepreneurial policy,
and innovative benchmarking tools, like CFED’s Assets and Opportunity
Scorecard. He helped to found the Association of Economic Opportunity (AEO).
Based in San Francisco, Mr. Friedman also serves on the Boards of D2D
Fund, EARN, the Rosenberg Foundation, the Friedman Family Foundation,
the Koshland Committee of the San Francisco Foundation and CFED’s CDFI
subsidiary, the National Fund for Enterprise Development (NFED) and is a
former board member of Levi Strauss & Co. He is a graduate of Harvard
College and Yale Law School. He is author of The Safety Net as
Ladder: Transfer Payments and Economic Development and a contributor
to numerous CFED and outside publications. |
