Gerald Richards
Gerald Richards is the Chief Executive Officer of 826 National. With twenty years of management and development experience at national nonprofit organizations, including the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship where he served as the Executive Director of the Bay Area office, Gerald is a respected trainer and sought after speaker on topics of youth and education access. He is interviewed regularly on these topics and has appeared on NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams, CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s 360, and The Michael Eric Dyson Show, as well as in articles in publications including The San Francisco Examiner and Inc. Magazine. He has also served as an education expert for national marketing campaigns promoting creativity in and outside the classroom. In 2008, he was named one of 101 African-American Champions for Youth in the Bay Area.
Gerald has conducted trainings and presented at conferences including the National Conference on Student Assessment, The Power of Youth Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, Craigslist Foundation’s Nonprofit Boot Camp, and the CA/NFTE Entrepreneurship BizCamp, and represented 826 National at the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2011 Annual Conference, the 2011 PSFK Conference, the 2011 Big Ideas Fest, and the Rhode Island School of Design.
His nonprofit career also includes positions with the United Negro College Fund; University of California, San Francisco; the J. David Gladstone Institutes; Chicago Panel on Social Policy; and The Cradle Foundation. He has managed flourishing relationships and partnerships with corporate, foundation, education and governmental entities including Citi, Merrill Lynch/Bank of America, the Lyles Center for Entrepreneurship at Fresno State, and the San Francisco Mayor’s Office.
Mr. Richards has a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
